SEES: Texas Space Grant Consortium

Team Mission

STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) addresses the national need to increase the number of high school students, particularly under-represented minorities and those from under-served areas that will pursue STEM college degrees.

I’m currently at University of Colorado Boulder, and will be studying aerospace engineering with a minor in film production. I had the opportunity to meet staff after a Space Grant information session during orientation. After they emailed me about joining Space Grant he said he got my email from you. I can’t thank you enough for doing that! The Space Grant Program here looks absolutely amazing, but I might have overlooked it if had I not participated in SEES. Actually, I probably wouldn't be in Colorado studying aerospace engineering if it wasn’t for SEES.

Through a partnership of institutions and organizations that support STEM education we will use NASA’s earth observing satellites as a catalyst for the development of an Earth Science high school course to be offered online and to implement a high school student internship program.

SEES will

Utilize NASA facilities and assets to provide work experience, research, and educational opportunities for high school students to encourage STEM careers and preparation;
Provide opportunities for students and teachers to participate in experiential learning activities that will connect learners to NASA-unique resources in Earth Science; and
Prepare STEM educators and leaders to deliver quality STEM instruction utilizing NASA assets and content.

The more time that passes since the internship, the more grateful I’ve become that I had the opportunity to be a part of this program. You are truly changing students lives and setting them on paths they could only have dreamed of.

2016 student participant

What does your team hope to achieve?

The project directly addresses NASA’s education mission goal to Attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM disciplines. In addition, it will contribute to:

Enabling STEM education through mentoring, selection of existing NASA content supporting STEM and the opportunity for high school students and teachers to conduct authentic NASA mission-based research, improve U.S. scientific literacy by integrating identified lessons and data for citizen scientists in repositories such as My NASA Data;
Advance national education goals by utilizing NASA resources that align with the Framework for K-12 Science Education; and
Leveraging efforts through partnerships by drawing upon the strengths of the collaborators who are part of this project.

The primary audience is K-12 Formal Education, with the primary focus on high school students and their teachers. Each component further contributes to NASA’s desired outcome of enabling NASA scientists and engineers to engage more effectively and efficiently with learners of all ages.

Our ultimate goal is to promote STEM careers to a diverse audience, leading to more students in the pipeline pursuing STEM degrees.