The purpose of this study was to understand if a STEM camp (Gear Up 4 STEM) offered during school breaks could improve science outcomes and engagement of elementary school students. This study followed two cohorts of students in Knox County Schools (grades 3, 4, and 5) over one school year and assessed their performance on the state administered…

Formal mentoring has been an effective approach to mitigate challenges facing underserved youth and contributes to observable improvements in behavior, relationships, and emotional well-being (Rhodes, 2008). Mentored youth appear to gain improvements in peer and parent relationships and school performance, while also engaging in lower levels of…

Energy concepts are taught in many schools, but children rarely have an opportunity to grapple with energy problems and work on their own solutions. This study explores the impacts of Connect Science, a service-learning (SL) program developed to enhance elementary students' energy literacy in the United States. Program impacts were explored within…

Client projects have long been recognized for their value as an experiential learning device and as a way to increase a wide range of skills, including critical thinking and problem solving. The extant literature, however, has not fully explored the relationship among student attitudes, learning outcomes, and project evaluations. Through…

This research primarily aims to examine project-based STEM training implemented in a state primary school in Turkey regarding teachers' and students' views. The phenomenological design, which is one of the qualitative research designs, was exclusively adopted in the study. The research sampling consisted of 18 students and 2 teachers working at a…

The importance of reducing the gender gap in engineering programs by recruiting and retaining female students is well recognized. Although women hold roughly half of all jobs in the United States, only 24% of STEM jobs are occupied by women. The problem is even more pronounced for engineering, where women held about 12% of jobs as of 2013 (Corbett…

This article discusses the use of community partnerships to produce civic engagement. In two undergraduate courses during the Fall 2016 semester, students created products that met the stated needs of local nonprofit organizations. Students indicated a positive reaction to their experiences in qualitative assessment instruments, and the community…

This classroom guide is intended to inspire and expand teachers' thinking about effective assessment in project-based learning (PBL). The tips listed in this guide are organized to follow the arc of a project. First comes planning, then the launch into active learning, and then a culminating presentation. Reflection is the final stage, and it's…

Aim of the study is to assess how students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades of primary education see the project works made in science education and their implementation processes. The study was fulfilled upon the descriptive survey model to collect data. Participants of the research were 100 students who had project implementation experiences in…

With the evolution of the surrounding world market, engineers have to propose innovations in products and processes. Industrial innovation frequently results from an improved understanding of basic physics. In this paper, an approach to accelerate inventive preliminary design is presented. This method combines the main advantages of CBR (Case…

Describes a modular, interdisciplinary curriculum offered by the City and East London Confederation. This curriculum aims to encourage more student responsibility for education, to create a problem solving approach to learning, to give early exposure to clinical elements, and to develop student communication skills. (DDR)

Based on a workshop presented by Charles Wales, a guided design project was developed for a junior mechanical design class at California State University-Chico. This course involves lectures on the design process and an extension of the basic mechanics of materials concepts, particularly as related to design and prevention of failure. The…

Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence (EPICS) is designed to introduce freshmen and sophomores to skills of self education and open-ended problem solving so that high levels of competence can be obtained. Rationale for the program, description of theme projects (including management and instruction), and pilot program evaluation are…

A problem solving course designed to expose the student to the wide range of alternative problem solving techniques and to enable the student to use these methods in practical applications was developed at the University of California at Los Angeles. The course also exposes the humanities student to objective tools such as numerical models, while…

This document presents practical advice to help managers of adult learning projects in communities across the United Kingdom manage their community projects for change. The following topics are discussed in sections 1-12: (1) the benefits of adult learning projects; (2) characteristics of adult learning projects and quality assurance mechanisms;…