Game-Changing Research Incentive Program (GRIP): Computer Science for All K-12 Students

The Game-Changing Research Incentive Program (GRIP), sponsored by NC State University’s Research Development Office, is intended to incentivize and support visionary research ideas that will result in large-scale extramural funding, award-winning research impacts, and first-class interdisciplinary graduate education and training.

As one of four GRIP winners, The Friday Institute’s Computer Science for All K-12 Students project will establish NC State as a national center addressing the critical need to provide pre-college students with foundational knowledge and skills in computational thinking. The partnership of NC State’s Friday Institute, College of Education, Center for Educational Informatics (CEI) and Department of Computer Science, along with the RTI Center for Evaluation and the Study of Educational Equity, is uniquely positioned to take a broad-based, systemic approach to addressing this challenge by fostering state-of-the-art educational innovations, conducting design research in partnership with K-12 schools, developing and implementing scalable and effective approaches to preparing teachers, and working with state government and business leaders to make North Carolina a model in bringing computational thinking and digital-age workplace skills into K-12 education.