Astronomy programming in both classroom and informal settings has the potential to impact the STEM career interest and STEM identity of middle school aged students. The Youth Astronomy Network, or YouthAstroNet, is an online learning community featuring robotic telescopes, web-based image visualization and analysis tools, and complementary instructional materials that allows students to pursue astronomy related investigations of personal relevance and interest.

In this talk I will share results from our NSF-funded research, including what aspects of the program are narrowing the gap in STEM identity between boys and girls, and the promising results for increasing STEM career interest among black students. I will also describe our approach to scaling up this effort to reach 10,000+ students.