Project Description
Project Name: Using drone technology, communal motivation, and strength-based approaches to engage middle school female students from rural areas in STEM
Take Flight is building awareness around STEM occupations for female students in middle school Science and CTE (Career and Technical Education) classrooms. It builds on changing the message. The Take Flight project emphasizes communal goals, and works to dispel the concept of who belongs in STEM, by broadening ideas around skills in multiple STEM disciplines. For female students in rural communities, this means shifting how conversations, careers and learning around STEM skills take place; challenging stereotypes and social constructs, and broadening the way rural students and educators view, talk about, and connect to STEM.
The Take Flight project has 3 main objectives:
- Change the message. To increase the motivation of female students to pursue STEM goals in rural communities, messages about STEM must be delivered in new ways to include communal goals, specifically those that are collaborative and/or altruistic.
- Use the disruptive and multidisciplinary mechanism of drones. Drones are not just disruptive. They have the multidisciplinary ability to reshape STEM industries by design and application. They lend themselves to breaking stereotypes and promoting communal goals and, thus, are the perfect “vehicle” for delivering a new message about STEM identity.
- Deliver the new message using strengths-based approaches. Learning contexts must be designed to engage female students, mitigate stereotype threat, and leverage students’ assets.
Educators love Take Flight
“The career videos filled in gaps where I couldn’t get a guest speaker.”
“Without the curriculum, I would not be where I am today. I needed a jumping-off point.”
“The students loved it and picked up the technical skills so quickly.”
“I loved it so much that I will be doing it again for grades 3-5 in summer school!”
75+
schools — across 11 states
1k+
rural students engaged
100+
teachers trained
349
students completed pre- and post-surveys for NSF-funded research study
Free Resources
Check out the Take Flight video series!
A showcase of videos highlighting how we shift conversations about STEM careers, learning, and skills; challenging stereotypes and social constructs, and broadening the way rural students and educators view, talk about, and connect to STEM.
STEM Heroes Interview
Join host David Young as he interviews Take Flight PI and Senior Director of Post Secondary/Workforce Implementation at CAST, Dr. Amanda Bastoni. Amanda shares her journey from photography teacher to STEM advocate, and discusses her groundbreaking work with CAST, developing free drone curriculum for middle schools.
Curriculum & Training
Take Flight has not yet been released publicly. We are working with teachers to finish the project and will share out finalized curriculum in 2026. If you would like to be emailed when this curriculum is available to the public, please fill out our interest form.
We also offer training for groups of up to 30 people prior to the release date as part of our professional development services. If you are interested in this, please contact Sarah Hocking at shocking@cast.org for more information and pricing.
“Even students who struggle academically are leading drone operations. Watching their confidence grow has been incredible.” Take Flight educator
Timeline
2022–2026
Funder
NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST)
Partners
Maine Department of Education
NH Department of Education
Career & Technical Education Schools
Project Leadership
Amanda Bastoni, CAST (PI)
Jess Gropen, CAST (Co-PI)
Sam Johnston, CAST (Co-PI)
Eric Feldborg, former CTE State Director NH and STEM Education Consultant
Contact
For more information about this project, please contact Sarah Hocking.
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