These hands-on engineering explorations give teachers and students a great opportunity to experience the design cycle. With so many schools and students involved, do you have data that highlights the different ways that schools have responded to the program. Are there gender or other differences in the selection of which engineering challenge to pursue. Are you collecting data or “stories” about student interest, engagement, and pursuit of STEM classes following their participation? Any results? How did you achieve such widespread participation?

What a cool curriculum, and an amazing outlet to STEM exploration you have in San Diego! In what courses are you curricula taking place? Are they special electives, or core classes? Or, are all these experience occurring in informal learning environments?

This sounds like such a great opportunity for students in San Diego! Following up on Vivian’s question, I also wondered about the choice of engineering challenge. Do the teams get to choose which challenge to engage in? If so, how do they choose?

As a followup question, I wonder about the cost of supporting the program. Does each school purchase the materials for each engineering challenge? What is the approximate cost for a typical group of students? Are any of the materials reusable?

This really looks like a groundbreaking project. I’m curious about what some of the aquatic challenges are. Do any of them involve interactions with the sea life in the tanks?

Thanks to all for your encouraging remarks. We are working in out-of-school time, so coursework is not impacted at this time. The goal for teachers is to transfer the engineering experiences to the classroom. Teachers are reporting that some new coursework is in development. Teachers select 1 of the 3 engineering challenges and then recruit students (any on their campus) to participate. We are in Year 3 and compiling data – trends indicate changes in teacher practice and enthusiasm for engineering among students

Across the engineering challenges – Botball, SeaPerch and Kidwind we found a mix of student team configurations Boys and Girls, All Boys, All Girls. Students involved in Botball all indicated a plan to attend college, whereas in SeaPerch and KidWind students indicated interest in college

SeaPerch engineers deploy there ROV in the Shark Tank only to take pictures and navigate. We load a Polaroid Cube onto the SeaPerch and video the dive.

I enjoyed seeing so many smiling and fully engaged students. This is the type of hands-on real world application of science that encourages students to take the next steps in science.

Great video. It’s good to see that Sea Perch is shark friendly. I wonder what the Great Whites would think of Sea Perch at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalupe_Island ?

Very nice presentation Ellen.

This is a really great opportunity for students to be able to build and create hands on projects to get them interested in STEM.I am a middle school student, I am moving soon and when I move if they do not have a STEM program I plan on making one of my own with my dad to help people get a better idea on what STEM can do for us and for the world. This video makes me want to do that even more now!

Great work for kids! I support this!

This sounds like it would be a transformative experience. Have you received any teacher or student feedback on what students have learned from these projects in the engineering and/or biology realm?

This is really inspiring. I will vote for this. I would like to know about this program and how it could be done in New York City.

Thanks for the rich discussion. I learned a lot.

Last Saturday we held a SeaPerch tournament at a local swimming pool, The press showed up and crafted a nice article quoting more teachers and students, check it out
http://www.eccalifornian.com/article/seaperch-t...

It feels great to know we are changing things up for students and teachers as they approach engineering! I am also proud of the teamwork it has taken to bring the community together. Thanks NSF!

Thought this video was great. How did I not see this earlier? I could definitely see how this would be very engaging and enhance any visit to an aquarium. Thanks for sharing this!