The Young Innovators Project at the Center for Digital Literacy, Syracuse University, is creating a unique website, The Innovation Destination, that houses thousands of resources for stimulating students’ curiosity, creativity, and innovative thinking. The centerpiece of this website will be a searchable database of over 500 video segments from interviews with 50 young innovators nationwide. 

We are looking for 20 elementary and middle school librarians nationwide to create 5 top-quality, standards-based lesson plans and 5 learning activities, integrated with a variety of STEM subjects, for students in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (1 lesson per grade level).  Learning activities are stand-alone activities (e.g., games, exercises) that you might have students complete that are not necessarily part of a formal lesson. Each lesson plan and learning activity must be linked to one or more of the questions we are using in our young innovator interviews. Your materials will be featured on The Innovation Destination website and will include your name, school, and location as creator.

We’ll provide you with a lesson planning template, learning activity template, and the list of interview questions to use to design your lesson plans and learning activities. We’ll also share with you some of our completed young innovator video segments to inspire and motivate you. Finally, this is something you can work on over the summer (due August 1, 2016)…and, we’ll pay you a modest stipend for successful completion!

If you are interested in being part of this groundbreaking national project, funded by IMLS, please send the following information to The Young Innovators’ Project research assistant, Kristin McAvoy at klmcavoy@syr.edu, NO LATER THAN MAY 15, 2016.

Your name:

Your city, state:

Your school name and location:

School district:

Grade levels in your school:

Number of years as a school librarian:

In one sentence, describe why you are especially qualified to create these materials for The Young Innovators Project:

The 20 lesson planning librarians will be selected by May 31, 2016.

Thank you.

Ruth V. Small, Ph.D.

Laura J. & L. Douglas Meredith Professor

Founding Director, Center for Digital Literacy

Director, Young Innovators Project

School of Information Studies

Syracuse University