# Presentation: 264325

## Joint Biodiversity, Terrestrial Ecology and Related Applied Sciences 

- Education and Public Outreach Breakout Session
- Monday August 2, 2006

## Selected NASA Education and Public Outreach Documents

- NASA Education Strategic Framework
- Excellence in Outreach Workshop Summary
- Report of NASA Explorer Institutes Pilot Workshops and Focus Groups
*See forum for these and more...*

## NASA Education Strategic Framework

***NASA Education Strategic Framework***

## Selected NASA Education and Public Outreach Activities/Programs

- Goddard Public Affairs, News, Visualization Lab
- The GLOBE Program
- American Museum of Natural History Bulletins
- NASA Explorer Institutes
- Museum Alliance
- Center Education Offices
- Aerospace Educators
- Internships
- New Investigator Program
- Earth System Science Fellowships
- Graduate Student Research Program
- Minority Programs
- Education Product Review

## Example Venues for Dissemination of Educational Materials

- Active partnerships with agencies and NGOs who conduct education and outreach (museums and science centers, NPS, many school systems, Girl Scouts, 4-H, etc.)
- NASA Explorer School Teacher Workshops
- NASA Educator Resource Centers
- NASA Core

_**Example Venues for Dissemination of Educational Materials**_

## Education and Public Outreach Criteria*

- Quality, Scope, Realism, and Appropriateness
- Customer Needs Focus
- Partnerships/Leverage/Sustainability
- Evaluation
- Content
- Pipeline
- Diversity
- Resource Utilization

- *See  *Explanatory Guide to the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Education and Public Outreach Evaluation Criteria-excerpt *on the session forum

## ROSES (Research Opportunities for Space and Earth Sciences)

- Supplemental Education Funding
- $15,000
- $50,000 if 3 or more funded researchers apply from same institution.
*Issue: *15K is a small amount that is difficult to justify expending time and therefore money on (full cost accounting) to write a worthy proposal
- $1.5 million is the total amount available for all of Space and Earth Science ROSES education supplements.
*Ideas:* use existing education projects, and augment with your research content; pair up with one or two other researchers--think thematically--and work together

## Q:  Are NASA formal education and training programs                 (e.g., ESSF, GSRP, NIP, etc.) effective? How could they be improved?

- Fellowships can backfire for student when college/university subtracts tuition from the award (many students who receive awards were on full or partial scholarships)
- NIP limited opportunity for those who need green card (this program is specifically intended to build workforce in US, so green card rule needs to stay)
- New students often feel isolated; actively connecting them to NASA researchers at institutions outside their own university is welcome (at Centers, or in conferences such as this one).
- Many scientists desire outreach training, (see Space Science Institute’s training program--contact Cheri Morrow; GSFC has program to train scientists to work with news media)
- Train people internationally --the best way to reach goal of having more people use data in research
- -NASA can partner with those who have a mandate to conduct remote sensing training, and help train trainers (possible connection with IUCN?)

## Education Breakout Group Conclusions

- Importance of continuity, coherence, leveraging, and evaluation
- Audience, message, delivery mechanism, evaluation are paramount
- Big ideas and big dissemination can happen if people think strategically
- Cross-discipline/focus areas integration can be reflected in education/outreach if funding structure reflects this approach.
- Opportunity to work with the GLOBE program on Carbon Cycle (Scott Ollinger funded)
- PAO work can be re-purposed for uses by other education and outreach groups (museums, for example)
- Many people find data access and production daunting, though some options are available, including GeoBrain, My NASA Data, NEO.

## Recommendations

- Encourage researchers to avail themselves of existing educational efforts and capabilities, to stretch limited education dollars
- Seize the opportunity to actively make funded researchers aware of various NASA education venues/activities
- Link interns, fellows, etc. with other NASA researchers (as inviting them to this workshop has done)
- Researchers should provide advance information about important findings so PAO can assist them in public outreach, create visualizations, etc.

_**Recommendations**_

## Slide 11