2014 Federal Laboratory
Consortium Meeting
25 Februrary 2014
The 2014 FLC Stem AWARD
Presenter: Mr. Jim Cusack
Griffiss Institute
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Information Directorate won the 2014 FLC
Stem AWARD
 The Team:
AFRL Information Directorate and Griffiss Institute Staffs
The Program:
A comprehensive STEM program addressing the needs of students from
grade school to graduate school. Even parents!
Covers urban, suburban and underserved rural school districts
The Award:
Only 3 pages
Background/Context
Roles
Programs and Impacts
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 In school programs:
Dimension U
Robotics AFRL
Competitions:
Cyber Patriot
Challenge
Summer Camps:
Robotics Camp
Cyber Camps
Internship and Mentoring Programs
Regional Program for Excellence
Minority Opportunities for STEM
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM (Cont’d.)
Internship and Mentoring Programs
Regional Program for Excellence
Minority Opportunities for STE
Workshops:
“Staying Safe Online”
Teacher Training
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM (cont’d.)
 In school programs:
Dimension U
 A challenging and competitive math program
 Offered to elementary and middle school students
 Exploits their interest in video gaming to increase math skills.
 Training has been provided to 100 teachers from 10 different
schools and over 2000 licenses for the program have been
distributed.
 Impact:
 Teachers are enthusiastic with the results
 Improved student scores on standardized tests related to
their formal curriculum.
 In Rome’s program alone math scores increased in the fifth
grade by 10% and by 8% in the sixth grade.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 In school programs:
Robotics In School Program
 A regional and national competitive program for elementary and
middle school students
 Robot kits and training are provided to school districts for use in
their technology classes.
 Impact:
 Trained 42 teachers and 30 members of the AFRL mentoring
staff
 The team provided schools with more than 350 robot kits
and incorporated the program in 10 schools’ technology
curricula.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Competitions:
Cyber Patriot
 A year round, national, high school cyber defense competition for
students in grades 9-12.
 Students work in teams with an assigned teacher and a mentor
from the Directorate on a compromised computer network and
must return it to a working state.
 Students gain skills working on a team in a hands-on environment
and learn about malware, worms, viruses, and malicious code.
 Impact: In the last four years the program has reached over 160
students and participated in 10 regional and national
competitions. The Rome Free Academy Junior ROTC team
mentored by Directorate researchers placed 1st for New York
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Competitions:
Challenge Competition:
 For the last five years, the Information Directorate has hosted a
week-long competition for high school seniors addressing real
world problems defined by senior Directorate researchers.
 “Securing the Supply Chain Network,” “Determine how to Provide
Trustworthy Information on the Public Internet,” “Going Green in
the Cloud”, “Best Flight Path for Airborne Search.”.
 Each participating high school is allowed one team consisting of
two students and a teacher.
Impact:
 Students are exposed to real world problems and compete for paid
summer internships at the Information Directorate and at local
information technology companies. In the last 5 years the program
has hosted 20 students per year.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Competitions:
March Math Madness:
 A significant part of the DimensionU experience is “March Math
Madness.”
 A one of a kind, local competition which engages teams of
students from the targeted grades during February and March.
Teams first compete within their grade with the highest scoring
team advancing to the following week.
 Impact:
 More than 500 students compete and finalists spar in a
school wide competition complete with a band and
cheerleaders.
 Math scores have risen and student enthusiasm for
mathematics and future interest in STEM has increased.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Summer Camps:
Robotics Camp:
 A summer program that immerses middle school students in
problem based learning by programming and controlling robots,
the culmination of our in school programs.
 Impact:
 The team hosted five, one-week robotics summer camps in
conjunction with the Mohawk Valley and Herkimer County
Community Colleges.
 Since the inception of the summer program, the lab’s team
has involved more than 650 students.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Summer Camps:
Cyber Camp:
 This is a one of a kind program available to students entering 7th
through 10th grade.
 Cyber experts from the Information Directorate, ITT-Exelis, Serco,
and the Utica Police Department provide sessions
 Topics include: Computer and Cyber Basics, Cyber Ethics,
Computer Components, Networking, Cryptography, Cyber Threats,
Data Hiding, and Cyber Forensics.
 Impact:
 In the last two years we’ve conducted five camps of 30 students
each for a total of 150 students.
 Inspired our “Staying Safe Online” workshops and, owing to its
popularity, advanced camps are planned for older high school
students starting in summer 2014.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Internship and Mentoring Programs:
Regional Program for Excellence:
 A program the Directorate has participated in for last 20 years
which has been incorporated in its STEM offerings.
 During the school year, high school students spend 40 hours with
a Directorate researcher and participate in structured technology
development activities for which students receive school credit.
 Impact:
 Provides students a sample of what is involved in a STEM
career and acts as a huge confidence builder, convincing
students they can succeed at STEM careers.
 This year the program mentored 20 students with over 400
high school students mentored since its inception.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Internship and Mentoring Programs
 Summer Internship Program:
A salaried internship program at the Air Force Research Laboratory to
attract and nurture both local and national scientific talent at the
undergraduate and graduate student level.
Canvassed over 330 academic institutions seeking quality candidates in
specific STEM disciplines.
Impact:
 In just the last two years, despite budget issues, there were 61
interns selected from a pool of 400 applicants in 2012 and over
700 in 2013.
 Successful applicants GPAs have climbed from 3.0 to 3.7 and many
interns are now on the Directorate’s research staff.
 Broad geographic diversity
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Internship and Mentoring Programs:
 Minority Opportunities for STEM:
 Funded under the Joint Educational Opportunities for Minorities
(JEOM) Program, the Information Directorate provides internships
to minority undergraduate students to do research.
 Impact:
 Started just five years ago with just 3 students, recently over
30 Thurgood Marshall Students participated in the program.
 In addition, 3 former students are now full time scientists at
the Directorate and enthusiastic STEM mentors.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Workshops:
 “Staying Safe Online”
 The Directorate realized it was successful in reaching a broad
spectrum of students with its STEM programs, but recognized it
was overlooking one significant group—parents and guardians.
 Parents of many of our students expressed concern for the
online safety of their children and felt unable to guide their
children’s online activities.
 Impact:
 Three free half day informational workshops were
provided to over 100 adults.
 Valuable insight that help them guide their children’s
online activities and encourage their involvement in STEM
programs.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 Workshops:
 Teacher Training
 Sustained support and training to teachers in delivering
educational services outside their normal curriculum that could
demonstrably raise math and science competency and
subsequent performance on standardized tests.
 Impact:
 Trained over 100 teachers in the past five years of the
program.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
 STEM Publication:
 “Designing STEM Activities to Complement Neural Development in
Children”
 Inspired by their involvement as mentors, four researchers in the lab
coauthored and presented a paper titled, “Designing STEM Activities to
Complement Neural Development in Children” at the
 3rd annual IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference held at Princeton
University, on 9 March 2013.
 The paper considered how new developments in neuroscience and
cognitive psychology can be used to enhance classroom STEM education.
 The paper is being utilized by the Cornell Cooperative Extension to help
inform parents and educators about the importance of neural stimulation
during adolescence.
2014 FEDERAL LABORATORY
STEM AWARD
THE PROGRAM
Full Spectrum:
 From grade school to grad school, the Information Directorate’s
STEM Program has increased the geographic and demographic
breadth of STEM involvement from a few local schools to schools
across NY State and around the Nation.
Diverse:
 The programs address the needs of urban districts with significant
poverty, as well as suburban schools, and underserved rural
districts.
Supported:
 Comprehensive programs with significant community and growing
financial support.