NASA's Community College Network Reaches 20 States and Counting
The NASA Community College Network, a 5-year program to bring NASA science and scientific expertise into the nation's community colleges, has entered its second year, doubling its reach in both participating colleges and participating scientists from its pilot year. As part of the program, community college instructors teaching astronomy will receive professional development, opportunities for 1:1 collaboration with a NASA scientist, and have access to a suite of curated NASA ready-to-go resources for an intro astronomy class. There are now 49 community colleges in 20 states participating in the program, which aims to reach any/all community colleges offering astronomy to their students.
"I find this experience very gratifying because I worked for NASA for 10 years, and I always feel like NASA needs to have a bigger impact, not in publicity, or everybody knows what NASA is, but in actually reaching people at a more grassroots level. This is exactly the kind of project I've always thought, 'This is the kind of stuff NASA needs to be doing.' I'm very happy to be involved in it and I'm very impressed with how it's going. I've been very satisfied and glad that I volunteered."
[Anonymous SME during evaluator interview]
The NASA Community College Network is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number 80NSSC21M0009 and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Please visit https://go.nasa.gov/3ydBCT4 to learn more.
