James Stofan

NASA Advisory Council

Task Force on STEM Education

December 2, 2015
Committee Membership

Mr. James Stofan (DC): Chief Operating Officer at Defenders of Wildlife. Former NASA 

Deputy Associate Administrator for Education Integration; served as Acting Associate 

Administrator for Education. Chair of Ad Hoc Task Force on STEM Education.

Dr. Carl Person (NC): Undergraduate Research Preceptor, Fayetteville State University. 

Former MUREP manager; retired NASA employee. 20 years of distinguished service to 

the U.S. Department of Education. Vice Chair of Ad Hoc Task Force on STEM Education.

Dr. Margaret Honey (NY): President and CEO of the New York Hall of Science. Chair of 

current National Research Council’s Committee Toward Integrated STEM Education: 

Developing a Research Agenda. Previously chaired NRC’s Committee on Learning 

Science.

Ms. Aimee Kennedy (OH): Vice President for Education, STEM Learning and 

Philanthropy at Battelle Memorial Institute. Manages STEM networks and programs 

including Ohio STEM Learning Network and national STEMx network. Previously Chief 

Academic Officer for Metro Early College High School. 
Committee Membership (cont’d)

Dr. Anita Krishnamurthi (DC): Vice President of STEM Policy at the Afterschool Alliance in 

Washington, District of Columbia. Worked in education at NASA Headquarters and NASA’s 

Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and was a program officer at the 

National Academy of Sciences. Her training is in astrophysics.

Dr. Michael Lach (IL): Director of STEM Policy and Strategic Initiatives at the University of 

Chicago. Formerly U.S. Dept. of Education STEM Advisor. Current work emphasizes a 

national, multisector effort to create and support 100,000 STEM teacher positions by 2021.

Mr. Ray Mellado (CA): Founder and Chairman of the Board, Great Minds in STEMTM 

(formerly HENAAC). Distinguished 21-year marketing/sales executive career with the Xerox 

Corporation. Awarded the 2009 NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal.
Committee Meetings

• April 3, 2015 

• July 16, 2015

• September 22, 2015

• November 19, 2015
NASA Education Structure 
NASA Education Structure (cont’d) 
NASA Education Highlights--SEAP

• In response to an OMB requirement that NASA’s internal projects and activities 

compete with one another for education funding in FY 2015 and thereafter, the Office 

of Education developed a competition to identify effective STEM education activities 

that deserve funding. 

• The competition prioritized among entirely new and the roughly 40 NASA activities 

reported by the Headquarters Office of Education, Aeronautics Research Mission 

Directorate, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and NASA 

centers’ education offices in the March 2014 Progress Report on Coordinating 

Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education.
NASA Education Highlights– Space Grant 

Rock On!
• MUREP provides competitive awards to MSIs and eligible community 

colleges as required by the five MSI focused Executive Orders. These 

institutions recruit and retain underrepresented and underserved students, 

including women and girls, and person with disabilities, into STEM fields.

• In fiscal year 2015, MUREP provided oversight to 111 active MSI awards 

across the United States.

• MUREP strives to ensure faculty and students are informed about NASA’s 

competitive research and education opportunities with the focus of 

increasing retention rates and degree completion at each educational level 

at MSIs in NASA-related fields. In addition, these awards also provide 

opportunities for MSIs to improve educators’ professional development and 

thereby better serve groups historically underrepresented and underserved 

in STEM.

NASA Education Highlights--MUREP
FY2015 MUREP Awards by Location
MUREP FY2015 Investments by MSI 

Designation
IG Report Recommendations

In order to improve the effectiveness of the Office 

of Education’s management of its education 

portfolio, we recommended that NASA’s Associate 

Administrator for Education:

(1) issue an Implementation Plan that aligns and 

remains current with NASA’s Strategic Plan, 

accurately reflects the Office of Education’s 

strategic direction, and includes measures to meet 

long-term goals and methodologies to gauge 

success;

(2) improve accessibility to the OEPM system to 

ensure project managers have an adequate and 

timely opportunity for data entry at the start of 

each fiscal year; 
IG Report Recommendations (cont’d)

(3) establish internal control procedures to ensure all required 

education activity data is collected, entered, verified, and 

validated in the OEPM system for accurate and reliable 

reporting in the Annual Performance Report; 

(4) establish a reasonable timeframe for project managers’ 

data entry after completion of individual education activities 

and ensure it is documented in the internal control 

procedures; and 

(5) assist Center Education Offices in developing coordinated 

activities for future competitions prior to the Office of 

Education reviewing all submissions and making selections.
Federal STEM Education Funding By Agency

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Progress Report on Coordinating Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and 

Mathematics (STEM) Education--FY2015 Estimate
NASA FY2015 Budget
Agency FY15 Total Appropriations - Education

16
Office of Education

FY 2005 - 2015 Budget Data
FY 2011 – 2021 NASA Education Office Budget Overview

18 $ Millions
Program Structure and Lines of Business

$119M (FY15 enacted) 

Aerospace Research & Career STEM Education 

PROGRAMS Development (ARCD) & Accountability (SEA)

$58M $61M

EPSCoR MUREP SEAP PROJECTS Space Grant $40M $18M $32M $29M

Enhances science & Strengthens research Enhances research and Competitive 

engineering capability of academic capabilities consolidation of NASA’s 

education/research jurisdictions that at MSIs to improve Office of Education 

for educators & haven’t participated quality of STEM historic formal and Description learners through equitably in programs for informal education 

Univ./Consortia in 50 competitive aero underrepresented and activities

States + DC and PR. research activities. underserved 

populations.

Stipends and Fund faculty Funds internships and NASA internal 

scholarships, hands- research, post-docs multi-year cooperative competition; In FY15, 

on experience on and Univ. capability; agreements $108M requests for Funding Examples variety of authentic travel to NASA research at MSI’s. ~$11M. Delta is liens 

platforms. Centers work w/ Support events like on prior commitments 

SMEs. SASE, SWE, etc. (e.g. Aero Scholars).

X X X Educator Professional Development (EPD)

STEM Engagement (SE) X X X

NASA Internships, Fellowships, & X X X

Scholarships (NIFS)

19 Institutional Engagement (IE) X X X X
Task Force on STEM Education Observations

Revisions to the NASA Education Implementation Plan (NEIP)

Observation:

• The NEIP should be revised so that it:

o Explains the unique role that NASA plays in the Federal STEM education efforts, and 

identifies how NASA education activities and investments work with other entities 

(including State Education Administrations and Local Education Administrations) to 

improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.

o Explicitly states the STEM education goals and outcomes that NASA intends to achieve, 

the specific contributions of each Mission Directorate, Office and Center to the 

Agency’s education goals, and the metrics NASA will use to measure performance. 

o Details how each Mission Directorate, Office and Center will contribute to these goals 

and how they are accountable for contributing to the Agency goals. Budgets and key 

grant competitions should be highlighted.

o Is clear to key audiences (including students, parents, teachers, K-12 administrators, 

university faculty, and scientists) what NASA is doing (and not doing) to help their 

efforts.

• Create an additional streamlined Agency document that communicates the top-level goals 

and specific assets that NASA will make available to key audiences.

• Clearly articulate the difference in goals between education and outreach.
Task Force on STEM Education Observations

Strengthen the structure of NASA’s education efforts and its ability to execute and communicate 

on them. 

Observation: 

• In order to ensure that NASA STEM education work has support across the engineering 

scientific, and education communities, NASA should explore ways to further leverage external 

advisors in both formal and informal roles to ensure that both the strategic guidance and 

content expertise is available to accomplish the ambitions NASA aspires to.

• NASA should revisit the organizational structure and governance to clarify the decisionmaking processes about STEM education:

o Mission Directorates and Centers should invest and make transparent their contributions 

to NASA’s education efforts. 

o To ensure Agency coordination, the Associate Administrator for Education should have 

explicit authority and accountability for ensuring mission directorate and Center 

involvement and participation in the overall Education Strategy.

o Budget and spending decisions should be coordinated across all funding sources to 

achieve the overall NASA Education goals.

• The NASA Education website should be updated to allow participants simple unified access to 

information from all Mission Directorates, Centers and Offices.
Task Force on STEM Education Observations

Competitive allocation of funds to elicit projects that meet the objectives of the NASA 

Education Implementation Plan (NEIP).

Observation:

• The budget for NASA’s education efforts should be commensurate with achievement of 

the goals articulated in the NEIP.

• All solicitations released by NASA for STEM education activities (Mission Directorates, 

Centers, Offices) should have explicit ties to the NEIP, and include questions about how 

responders will address the stated goals. It is ok that NASA doesn’t invest in all levels of 

the education system. With the limited funding that NASA has, solicitations should be 

targeted to make the most impact on specific sectors (depth vs. breadth) of the education 

community.

• NASA should actively cultivate the network of earth and space science educators and 

researchers, and connect those individuals to the broader STEM education community, 

learning scientists, and school and district administrators.

• NASA should continue to expand the publication of abstracts from funded projects and 

the evaluation data gathered.
Back up Slides/Additional Info
Achievements in FY 2015 

• In a follow-on collaboration, NASA and the Department of Education entered into 

a second reimbursable Space Act Agreement aligned with near-term CoSTEM

priorities to increase and sustain youth and educator engagement in STEM. The 

partnership supported STEM objectives and activities within Department of 

Education's 21st Century Community Learning Center (21CCLC) program. NASA 

customized online STEM challenges and associated curriculum materials aligned 

to 21CCLC objectives and implemented them in 10 states including: California, 

Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, 

Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin.

• In collaboration with SMD, the Office of Education National Space Grant College 

and Fellowship Program (Space Grant) released the Undergraduate Student 

Instrument Project (USIP) Student Flight Research Opportunity (SFRO) to solicit 

proposals from U.S. institutions of higher education to develop an 

undergraduate-led Project Team that will fly a science and/or technology payload 

relevant to NASA strategic goals and objectives on a sounding rocket, balloon, 

aircraft, suborbital reusable launch vehicle (sRLV), or CubeSat launched on an 

orbital launch vehicle.
Achievements in FY 2015 (cont’d) 

• NASA’s Office of Education, in cooperation with Headquarters’ Offices of 

Communications, Chief Scientist, and Chief Technologist, and the Mission 

Directorates issued the Competitive Program for Science Museums, 

Planetariums, and NASA Visitor Plus Other Opportunities (NASA Research 

Announcement NNH15ZHA001N) that fully aligns to the NASA and Federal 

STEM 5-Year Strategic plan. Youth-serving organizations, museums, 

planetariums and NASA visitor centers may submit proposals until 

December 7, 2015.

• NASA executed a competition across the Mission Directorates, NASA 

Offices of Education at the Centers, and JPL. The Priorities Competition for 

SEAP used criteria in an internal-to-NASA Request for Information (i-RFI). 

The FY 2015-2016 i-RFI for SEAP used these broad criteria: 1) 

Background; 2) Focus; and 3) Evidence of Effectiveness. The SEAP i-RFI 

ensured all submitters answered the same items and identified the priorities 

for selection. Between Dec 2014 and Aug 2015, NASA awarded ten 

education partnerships and one NASA Space Act Agreement, bringing the 

total number to more than 40 active space act and interagency agreements 

with diverse entities around the country.
An Out-of-gravity Experience Exhibition

• In February 2015 More than 6,000 Visitors for the Friday-Saturday Public Premiere of Space: An Out-ofgravity Experience Exhibition in Saint Paul, MN. 610 Boy Scouts who “camped in” at the Science 

Museum of Minnesota were among the thousands who attended the first two days the exhibit was open to 

the public. The exhibit incorporates ISS-provided footage of astronauts living and working in space, other 

short films and hands-on activities that explain complex STEM concepts. As reported by the Minneapolis 

papers “there’s a full-scale, climb-aboard, rotating mockup of the Space Station’s Destiny Lab . . . It’s the 

first of its kind, the only one in the world.” In addition, the Museum’s Kitty Anderson Youth Science Center 

(KAYSC), presented A Celebration of Space Saturday and Sunday, February 21-22, offering special handon activities for children designed and created by the “Space Crew” and funded by a NASA Education 

grant. KAYSC annually engages over 100 youth annually in grades 7-12 in out-of-school-time science 

programming afterschool, Saturdays, and during the summer. 75% of KAYSC participants are from lowincome families, 60% are girls and 90% are youth of color. On Sunday morning the 10-member Space 

Crew hosted a breakfast workshop for approximately 65 of their KAYSC colleagues. The exhibit closed in 

September in MN opened in CA in October. Exhibit components are: Section 1: Space can kill you; 

Section 2: Traveling to and in space; Section 3: Weightlessness; Section 4: Living in space; Section 5: 

Working in space; Section 6: Rotating Destiny Lab; and Section 7: Our future in space Travel schedule, 

Educator Guide. Floor plan and 90 second video visit

• https://www.smm.org/exhibitrental/space-out-gravity-experience
Education Highlights--Space Grant 
NASA Education Highlights—SEAP (cont’d) 

• The i-RFI and subsequent SEAP Estimated Price Report Guidance are two 

steps toward improving and restructuring the Agency’s management of the 

its diverse education portfolio in order for it to better align with Federal 

guidance. For additional details, go to: 

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/about/seap-overview.html/. At the 

September quarterly SEAP briefing with OMB, desk officers for NASA and 

the Department of Education speculated that the changes at NASA 

embodied by the SEAP competition may turn out to be a major 

accomplishment or legacy of the Obama Administration’s goal to improve 

Federal STEM Education.
Federal STEM Education Funding By Agency

29

2014 2015 2016

Enacted Estimate Budget

National Science Foundation 1179 1176 1231

Health and Human Services 619 616 601

Education 507 528 685

NASA 127 164 121

Defense 132 142 117

Agriculture 89 90 83

Transportation 86 90 108

Energy 49 50 54

Commerce 35 35 22

Environmental Protection Agency 20 19 9

Nuclear Regulatory Commission 20 16 1

CNCS 14 14 15

Homeland Security 6 5 5

Interior 3 3 3

Smithsonian Institution 0 0 5

Total Federal STEM Education 2886 2948 3060