New National Science Foundation grant helps students find their fit in STEM careers

Jennifer L. Weible, Ph.D., a professor at Central Michigan University, has been awarded an iTEST grant from the National Science Foundation for her project “Making Wearables for High School Learners”. This two-year project has been funded from Summer 2023 to Summer 2025 and centers around sparking curiosity in STEM using computational thinking, coding, and electronic textiles. 

Along with collaborators from Penn State and Upward Bound (a program for under-served students), she is designing and teaching a camp this summer and hopes to provide opportunities for high school students to explore career options in STEM fields. This will be done through activities such as designing and coding a digital game and using electronic textiles, conductive thread, and circuits to create a controller to play their game.  

Jennifer Weible is supporting these activities through the NSF grant awarded to her and her collaborators. This grant allows the team to fund several student researchers, buy camp supplies, collect data, and analyze it. The teams’ goals are 1) to improve the way that students learn about computational thinking and coding, 2) to explore the role of curiosity in making, and 3) to open doors to careers in STEM fields.  

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