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

该项目将通过向112名中学生提供大气及相关科学的工程经验，推进学生和教师创新技术体验（ITEST）计划的努力，更好地理解和促进培养学生在科学、技术、工程或数学（STEM）领域从事职业的动机和能力的实践。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美好的未来。它将在校外（OST）环境中开发和研究工程经验，将基于项目的STEM学习与工程经验和持续的指导相结合，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。该项目建立在先前资助的关于高中生纳米技术体验的项目的基础上，并将网络学习工具用于工程体验。中学生将在课外活动中运用工程设计原理，参与风力发电、飞机设计、大气传感器、太阳能等活动和项目，并在风洞中测试投下式探空仪模型。在美国教育部校外时间框架的指导下，该项目将使用调查、访谈和课堂观察数据来捕捉程度，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构建，从而提高学生的能力、动力和对STEM的坚持。如果数据显示某些类型的工程经验确实对低社会经济地位（SES）和服务不足的学生产生积极影响？能力，动机和坚持，然后成果将传播到其他社区，以帮助更多的低SES学生参与基于项目的工程经验的机会。

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.