Making youth excited about STEM education

Abstract

This paper describes a three-year effort, to increase Middle School students' attitude and interest in STEM careers by focusing on programming and thus gaming. Generally, the project shows promise for increasing students' knowledge and skills with respect to technology both over time and in relation to their peers. Over the last three years, students have shown significantly more positive attitudes toward technology, and also increased interest in pursuing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) as career, when compared to similar, non-participating peers. In addition, participants of this study have expressed increased desire in taking more engineering and technology courses as offered in their high schools.