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AMP-IT-UP Showcase


Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP): An NSF Partnership to Cultivate The Next Generation of STEM Innovators

Description

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Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National Science Foundation Math and Science Partnership to promote workforce development and to identify and cultivate the next generation of creative science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) innovators. The core partners of AMP-IT-UP are Georgia Institute of Technology and the Griffin-Spalding County School System (GSCS).

AMP-IT-UP includes Engineering and STEM Innovation and Design (STEM-ID) courses, integrated STEM curriculum in math and science classes, extracurricular opportunities for students and teachers, and research on how the project affects academic engagement, content understanding, knowledge transfer and student persistence in STEM.

In this project, high school students use advanced manufacturing equipment to create innovative design projects as part of a redesigned introductory engineering course.

Middle school students explore their creativity in 18-week STEM-ID courses, using rapid prototyping equipment located on GSCS campuses. Middle school students also participate in integrated, project-based lessons in their mathematics and science classes that promote inquiry and situated learning and that contextualize STEM topics to demonstrate their relevancy to middle school students.

AMP-IT-UP's strategy for STEM integration is to weave a coherent thread of science and math practices through all STEM learning. The practices chosen as integrating themes in AMP-IT-UP instructional materials all relate to the collection, visualization, interpretation and communication of data, and are aligned with practices from the Next Generation Science Standards and the Standards of Mathematical Practice.

During the 2015-2016 school year, approximately 1,500 students participated in the middle school STEM-ID courses, 250 in the high school engineering course, and 2,300 middle grades students participate in AMP-IT-UP math and science instructional units