Engineering experiences: Research on student competency, motivation and persistence in STEM for underserved youth

该项目将通过向112名中学生提供大气和相关科学的工程经验，推动创新技术学生和教师体验计划(ITEST)的努力，以更好地了解和促进实践，培养学生在科学、技术、工程或数学(STEM)领域追求职业生涯的动机和能力。该合作项目致力于通过长期、全面的教育丰富活动，帮助低收入青年实现更光明的未来。它将在课外时间(OST)环境下开发和学习工程经验，将STEM基于项目的学习与工程经验和持续指导相结合，为学生在高中STEM课程和未来的STEM劳动力中取得成功做好准备。该项目建立在之前资助的针对高中生的纳米技术体验项目的基础上，并将网络学习工具应用于工程体验。作为课外计划的一部分，中学生将在涉及风力发电、飞机设计、大气传感器、太阳能和在风洞中测试落管模型的活动和项目中使用工程设计原则。该项目将在美国教育部课外时间框架的指导下，使用调查、访谈和课堂观察数据来获取学位，以及在什么条件下个人和社会过程的相互作用有助于知识结构，从而导致学生在STEM中的能力、动机和坚持不懈。如果数据显示，某些类型的工程经验确实会对低社会经济地位(SES)和服务不足的学生产生积极影响？在STEM的能力、动力和毅力方面，结果将传播到其他社区，以帮助增加更多SES较低的学生参与基于项目的工程体验的机会。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that develop students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by providing engineering experiences in atmospheric and related sciences to 112 middle school students. The collaborative project is dedicated to helping low-income youth achieve a brighter future through long-term, comprehensive educational enrichment activities. It will develop and study Engineering Experiences, in an out-of-school-time (OST) setting that combines project-based learning in STEM with engineering experiences and ongoing mentoring to prepare students for success in high school STEM courses and the future STEM workforce. The project builds on previously funded projects about nanotechnology experiences for high school students and adapts cyberlearning tools for Engineering Experiences. Middle school students will use engineering design principles on activities and projects involving wind power, aircraft design, atmospheric sensors, solar energy, and testing dropsonde models in a wind tunnel as part of an afterschool program.Guided by the US Department of Education's out-of-school-time framework, the project will use survey, interview, and classroom observation data to capture the degree and under what conditions the interplay of individual and social processes contributes to knowledge construction that leads to student competency, motivation, and persistence in STEM. If data show that certain types of engineering experiences do positively influence low socioeconomic status (SES) and underserved students? competency, motivation, and persistence in STEM, then outcomes will be disseminated to other communities to help increase opportunities for more low SES students to engage in project-based engineering experiences.