Strategies: Clean Energy and Environmental Science Career Pathways

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This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by engaging the students in hands-on field experience, laboratory/project-based entrepreneurship tasks and mentorship experiences. the project will engage a diverse population of youth residing in low-income, urban communities in the East San Francisco Bay Area in a combination of technology-enabled STEM learning, skills development, training and research activities specifically designed to stimulate interest in clean energy and environmental science-related career pathways. The students will engage in interventions through a clean energy and environmental science-related curriculum The project will investigate the capacity of two career pathway models to stimulate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) interest and career awareness among underrepresented "opportunity youth" (i.e., those between the ages of 16 and 24 years old enrolled in non-traditional educational programs and not working). The project will produce a set of effective clean energy and environmental science-related instructional resources useful in helping to improve STEM literacy among youth residing in urban areas. The project will be assessed through qualitative data derived from observations and structured interviews with individuals and small groups of participants throughout their pathway experiences. Project implementation will occur in close collaboration with two local organizations that specialize in offering programs for opportunity youth. The project will engage youth enrolled in programs operated by these organizations in carefully designed sequences of hands-on activities that address important STEM subject matter related to clean energy and environmental science. Summer and after school components will serve as its primary content assimilation mechanism. Approximately sixty new youth will participate in project activities each year over the course of the project's three-year implementation. These youths will engage in hands-on, materials-centered activities designed to aid in the development of STEM understandings and skills that increase capacity and confidence necessary for effectively pursuing future academic and career-related endeavors. Research questions are: 1) What is the impact that a given pathway model has on affecting career interest, preparation, and trajectory? and 2) Can these models be successful in impacting how youth value the application of STEM? The project takes an innovative approach to broadening participation in STEM by addressing STEM workforce inequities and engaging a population of students not in the traditional school setting in STEM learning. The project will provide information about how to re-engage students who are currently disconnected from the STEM pipeline. In this way, the findings of this research would move beyond addressing leaks in the pipeline to addressing how to move individuals back into the pipeline.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.