NASA Education Grant Focuses on Promotion of STEM
NASA has awarded Oklahoma State University a one-year grant to help out with the agency's effort to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) among high school students and encourage them to pursue science-related careers.
The $2.6 million basic grant is part of a push to implement NASA's Interdisciplinary National Science Program Incorporating Research Experience (INSPIRE). The INSPIRE program aims to get high-school kids interested in science careers and includes summer programs at NASA facilities, access to special online resources, and videoconferencing sessions between students and NASA scientists and engineers.
Oklahoma State, for its part, will use the grant money to provide administrative support for recruitment, logistics, program evaluation, and online resources.
According to NASA, "The work will be performed at NASA's 10 facilities
throughout the country. NASA's Kennedy Space Center will manage the
program. The basic grant's estimated cost is $2.6 million for the first
year with a potential of four one-year options."
In other NASA funding news, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks has entered into a five-year contract with the agency for "the management and operations of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System Synthetic Aperture Radar Distributed Active Archive Center," according to NASA. "The archive center is devoted to the collection, processing, archiving, distribution and support of science data from, but not limited to, Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites."
The value of the contract is estimated at a maximum of $39 million over five years.
Further information can be found on NASA's education portal here.