The University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) proposes a five-day commuter program with aims to broaden participation in Environmental Sustainability, Science, Technology, Engineering, Eco-social science, and Mathematics (ESTEEM) by underserved high school students in Oklahoma. This ESTEEM Summer Academy (“Academy” hereafter) is designed with focuses on career exploration, experiential learning, and partnership building with government agencies (e.g. FBI), industry leaders (e.g. Apple), and non-profit organizations (e.g. Women in Technology) (GINO). These GINO partners will share professional expertise, technological infrastructures, institutional resources, and innovative tools to help the project team design age-appropriate contents, interdisciplinary curricula, and simulated learning platforms with real-world context. To broaden awareness of emerging professions (e.g. Data Science), career-exploration venues include site visits and workshops with ESTEEM tracks. These program components are designed to provide students with job-shadowing opportunities to interact with professionals. To promote career interests, emerging technologies (e.g. virtual reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics) are incorporated into the design of stimulated (SIM) learning environments and hands-on activities to better engage today’s digital natives. To enhance experiential learning experiences, student participants will be immersed in SIM to role play as young professionals; they will be challenged to apply learned knowledge and acquired skills to solve modern-day problems. An external evaluator will assess the efficacy of the proposed activities and how the program objectives are met. Dissemination venues include: conference presentation, journal publication, Ted Talk, science fairs, and social media to reach the general public. Preliminary results will form the basis for a scale-up grant to seek external funding from National Science Foundation to help underrepresented students navigate their education-career pathways.
