WASHINGTON — NASA’s Office of Education at headquarters in Washington has announced three new extramural funding opportunities that could result in the award of grants or cooperative agreements.

One of the three funding opportunities is the K-12 Competitive Grants Opportunity, a competitive education grant program targeting secondary school level teaching and learning, with grants being awarded to U.S. public schools and non-profit organizations. The goal of the opportunity is to seek out and support new, innovative, and replicable approaches to improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning and instruction. This will leverage NASA’s unique contributions to STEM fields.

The second area is the Global Climate Change Education Opportunity. The goal of this competitive project is to improve the quality of global climate change and Earth system science education at the elementary, secondary, and undergraduate levels. Each funded proposal is expected to take advantage of NASA’s unique contributions in climate science to enhance students’ academic experiences and improve educators’ abilities to engage and stimulate their students.

In the third area of opportunity, NASA is making available funding for a competitive program for science museums, science-technology centers and planetariums to enhance programs related to space exploration, aeronautics, space science, Earth science or microgravity. The Office of Education has contracted the external peer reviewer proposal evaluation process to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Authority for final award selections rests with NASA Headquarters.

For more detailed information about the 2008 Competitive Grant Programs, visit:

http://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/