Project Grant 2417884

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $2,000,000 Project Grant under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.070) federal grant program to the University of Oregon. The grant will fund the Researching Equity, Access, & Learning in Computer Science Education (REAL-CS) project, which aims to expand the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) program. ECS is an introductory high school course and teacher preparation program designed to broaden participation in computing, particularly for students from groups historically marginalized in the field.

The key objectives of the REAL-CS project are to: 1) leverage national organizational partners to support ECS classes and teacher learning communities nationwide; 2) develop innovative, inquiry-based ECS curriculum and materials incorporating justice-oriented design; 3) increase CS educator knowledge and preparation to integrate culturally responsive teaching practices; and 4) conduct research on teacher support for justice-oriented computing instruction and building a professional community. This project builds on 15 years of REAL-CS development, research, and implementation in schools across the U.S. and is expected to continue providing equitable learning experiences to thousands of students, expand ECS course availability, and support dozens of new and hundreds of experienced ECS teachers annually.