Students at Charles Carroll Middle School in New Carrollton, Md., participated in the school's first "bioblitz" Wednesday, part of a nationwide initiative to increase the use of mobile devices in the classroom.

The 7th- and 8th-graders were able to observe and identify numerous living species of plants, animals and insects in the area near their school, which is part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Red, white and blue discs took flight as hundreds of high school and middle school students invaded Chrysler Group LLC's Auburn Hills (Mich.) headquarters to show off the robots they created and competed with at the 2013 FIRST Robotics Competition Championship. 

The Verizon Foundation is the philanthropic entity of Verizon. We are focused on accelerating social change by using the company’s innovative technology to help solve pressing problems in education, healthcare and energy management. The Foundation has several education programs focused on developing students’ interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Some of those key highlights are:

With team names like “Killer Bees,” Bionic Barons” and “More Martians,”  a dedicated following of high school-aged “techies” happily sacrifice hundreds of hours of their spare time to conceive, design and build some very sophisticated robots and their futures.

Read more about these extraordinary students and their robots in a Chrysler Group LLC blog by Betty Carrier Newman.