NASA Awards Grants For High School Science Education

WASHINGTON -- NASA will award about $4 million in grants to public
school districts, state-based education leadership, and
not-for-profit education organizations to support academic excellence
in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

The first round of awards is valued at $3.1 million. Each award is
expected to leverage NASA's unique contributions in STEM education,
enhance secondary students' academic experiences, and improve
educators' abilities to engage their students.

A total of eight proposals were selected for funding to school
districts and organizations in California, Maine, New York (2), North
Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas. The selected proposals
illustrate innovative approaches to using NASA-themed content in
support of secondary-level teaching and learning, with a particular
emphasis on high school education.

The proposals were selected through a two-step process, merit-based,
peer-reviewed competition. The awards have a two-year period of
performance, and range in value from $350,000 to $400,000.

The Summer of Innovation Capacity Building Awards are valued at $1
million. They will be shared among institutions that showed student
participation in summer learning experiences helped academic
performances in the following school year. The Summer of Innovation
Capacity Building effort also looked for programs with the potential
to be a model for middle school education.

Each funding proposal leverages NASA content in STEM education to
build successful programs with a special interest in reaching
underserved students and strengthening the bridge between
out-of-school and in-school learning programs.

There were 16 proposals selected for funding representing the District
of Columbia and these 13 states: California, Connecticut, Florida,
Georgia (2), Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon,
Texas, Virginia (2), Washington and Wisconsin.

For a list of selected proposals in both of these award categories, visit:

http://nspires.nasaprs.com

For information about the NASA Education program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/education

Source: NASA