NASA Selects Three Additional Informal Learning Institutions to Engage Learners in its Mission
NASA’s Teams Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions (TEAM II) has selected three additional informal education organizations to supplement the initial group selected in June 2018. The selected projects promote STEM learning to inspire the next generation of explorers.
These additional projects, selected from 43 proposals through a peer reviewed process, will be implemented over the next two to three years. The value of each project is approximately $750,000.
The TEAM II selection of over $2 million will be awarded to these newly selected projects from the organizations:
- Observing with NASA: Exhibits, programs, and authentic data experiences with astronomical images, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- SciGirls in Space: Exploring the Moon, Mars, and NASA Careers, Twin Cities Public Television, Saint Paul, Minnesota
- New Worlds Await You: National STEM Challenges for Student Space Exploration, WEX Foundation, San Antonio
The selected projects provide authentic mission-driven science, technology, engineering and math experiences that include: image processing capability for citizen science using MicroObservatory Robotic Telescopes and kiosks in museums; a new season of PBS’ “SciGirls” episodes and role model videos focusing on girls’ space-flown experiments; and a program to engage families and prepare at-risk youth to participate in “Space City” engineering design competitions for living and working in space.
These organizations will partner with museums, K-12 and higher education institutions, informal education networks and competition providers to create youth STEM learning programs, public science participation opportunities, engaging multimedia, and hands-on, inquiry-based activities. Such projects extend the reach of informal learning organizations, with the goals of increasing critical-thinking skills and engineering and science literacy. They also prepare youth, particularly those in populations that are historically underrepresented in such professions, for careers in STEM.
The organizations will collaborate with NASA’s Museum Alliance, a nationwide network of informal education professionals at over 1000 science museums, planetariums, NASA visitor centers, Challenger Centers, youth-serving organizations, camps, libraries, visitor centers, nature centers, aquariums and zoos. All are designed to partner with regional and national networks to reach wide audiences, far beyond the walls of the proposing institution.
For more information on 2018 NASA TEAM II, visit:
For more information on NASA’s STEM engagement programs, visit:
