NSF grants support ‘FarmBot,' STEM initiatives
The National Science Foundation has awarded supplemental grants to two previously funded projects anchored at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, and a planning grant for a new interdisciplinary venture.
An incremental award of $258,564 was appended to an original, three-year, $1.3-million grant from the NSF to engage low-income families in a participatory educational program involving restorative gardening practices and artificial intelligence. Faculty from the Lynch School, and the Engineering and Sociology departments co-lead the project’s management team.
As part of the project, students helped to design and construct AI-enhanced 'FarmBots.'
In collaboration with the Louisiana School to Farm Program, and Boston, Waltham, and Springfield (Mass.) Public Schools, the project has engaged 180 historically marginalized youth and their families from the Bay State and Louisiana in the design and construction of artificially intelligent-enhanced farming robots that enable youth to learn to maintain a garden and use physical computing tools to successfully manage the growth and production of nutritious food.
Additionally, a $300,000 incremental NSF grant has been awarded to an interdisciplinary team from the Lynch School and the Engineering department to help prepare high school STEM instructors to teach engineering in public school systems.
Launched in January of this year, the project—originally funded by a three-year, $3 million grant to BC ($1.6 million), Maine Math and Science Alliance, and Southern Alabama University—assists teachers in the instruction of transdisciplinary STEM training anchored in physical computing.
G. Michael Barnett (Caitlin Cunningham)
“We are particularly pleased to receive these supplemental funds since the NSF has essentially ceased awarding grants for education-related programs,” said G. Michael Barnett, the Buehler Faculty Fellow and a professor of Science Education and Technology at the Lynch School. “The additional funding will support the integration of AI into both programs to support teachers and students to collaborate with AI while also understanding the pitfalls to using AI.”
Barnett also noted that the NSF has awarded the Lynch School a $49,000 planning grant for a new interdisciplinary project titled “The Home-to-School AI Bridge: Democratizing AI Literacy through Physical Computing,” which will train parents, community members, youth, and researchers to use AI tools to develop solutions to problems in their community. Faculty from the Lynch School, Carroll School of Management, and the Engineering department will co-lead the project.