NASA Begins School Year with Two Class Acts

Two NASA education programs, to inspire the next
generation of explorers, have launched for the new school
year. They are open for applications and proposals.

Schools from across the country are eligible to apply online
for an opportunity to partner with the NASA Explorer Schools
(NES) Program. NES is designed to bring mathematics,
science, technology and engineering learning to educators,
students and families.

NASA also released a cooperative agreement notice for the
informal education community, with an opportunity to compete
for funding support to host focus groups for the NASA
Explorer Institutes (NEI) Program.

“Students participating in classroom and informal education
institute activities are the discoverers, space explorers
and inventors of tomorrow. Their future role is vital in
order to ensure our nation’s technological and space
exploration goals become a reality,” said Dr. Adena Williams
Loston, NASA’s Chief Education Officer. “These two programs
personify NASA’s commitment to foster learning environments
that will inspire young people to understand and protect our
home planet, seize opportunities to venture to the moon,
Mars and new worlds beyond.”

Each spring, a three-year partnership is established between
the agency and 50 new NASA Explorer School teams. More than
100 teams of teachers and education administrators from
diverse communities from 46 states have participated.

NASA invites the selected teams to work with education
specialists from agency centers to spark innovative science,
mathematics and technology instruction aimed at students in
grades four through nine. NES teams acquire new teaching
resources and technology tools using NASA’s unique content,
experts and other resources.

The deadline for submission of NES applications is January
31, 2005.

The NEI Program’s focus groups assemble experts from the
informal education community to assist NASA with developing
engaging experiences, opportunities, materials and
information for use by science centers, museums,
planetariums, libraries, parks, aquaria, nature centers,
botanical gardens and youth groups across the nation.

NASA anticipates up to 10 NEI focus groups will be funded
through this solicitation, at a maximum funding level of
$50,000 per project.

Proposals must be received by November 12, 2004.

To view the 2005 NES application on the Internet, visit:

http://explorerschools.nasa.gov

For information on the cooperative agreement notice and NASA
Explorer Institutes, visit:

http://education.nasa.gov/divisions/informal/overview/F_pathfinder_explorer_institute.html

For information about NASA education programs on the
Internet, visit: http://education.nasa.gov

For information about NASA and agency programs on the
Internet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov