9553428 Chasek FAMILY TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY (FT2) is an after-school program targeting girls and their parents who are to collaborate in problem solving activities (using tools and building models) that illustrate the importance of science, technology, and mathematics in the world beyond the classroom. This proposal is for support of the second phase of the project: an assessment to determine the project's readiness for wider dissemination by evaluating the effectiveness of the existing activities, materials and strategies. FT2 was created to make tools and technology activities and related careers accessible and exciting to girls who traditionally are on the margins of technological experience. The program seeks to increase the number of girls (and boys) who are excited about science and technology and encourage to their continuing interest; to stimulate parents to become advocates for their daughters' endeavors in science and technology; and to train teachers to promote girls' confidence and competence in problem-solving and in real life applications of mathematics and science concepts. The program targets girls at a critical time in their educational development, pre-adolescence, before sex role stereotypes are solidified. (During the first phase of the project, funded in 1992-94 by an Eisenhower Mathematics and Science Education grant, 40 teachers, grades 4-6, field tested original technology activities with 240 families in an after-school program.) Objectives for this second phase of the project include: (1) involving and encouraging girls, (boys), and their parents in a hands-on technology program, FT2, by training a cadre of teachers in the necessary facilitation, motivation, and science, pre-engineering, and mathematics skills; (2) supervising the program in 12 urban, suburban, and rural schools, with diverse groups of majority and minority girls, (boys), and their parents; (3) providing technical assistance and access to the FT2 Resource Center to reinfor ce and sustain the interest of these girls, parents, and teachers in science, technology, and mathematics activities and related careers; (4) observing and evaluating the impact and effectiveness of the program (activities, materials, facilitating and motivating strategies, and the career component) on participants (girls, their parents, and teachers). Ultimately, it is hoped that FT2 will become a national parental involvement program, increasing awareness of the need for technological literacy by providing a model program for girls and their parents that can be institutionalized in NJ and disseminated to other states. A multimedia package (teacher's manual and video) are to be produced and a Leadership Institute is to be designed and conducted to prepare a cadre of FT2 teachers to become trainers of other teachers to facilitate dissemination of this model. ***
