In Advance of Your Augmentation Deadline, A Tag Up on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) — Is There Interest in Adding SSEP to Your Portfolio of Annual Programming, starting with SSEP Mission 2 to the International Space Station?
CONTACT: Jeff Goldstein, Cell: 301-395-0770; Email: jeffgoldstein@ncesse.org
Dear Space Grant Consortium colleagues:
I wanted to provide an update on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) in advance of the due date for your 2011 Augmentation Proposals. Given the already rich programmatic track record of Space Grant Consortia partnership on SSEP, I wanted to explore if you might consider adding SSEP to your Consortium’s normal portfolio of programming, and if your augmentation proposal might be an entry opportunity. SSEP is a high caliber high visibility initiative with a significant track record of success, and which is highly leveraged (low cost per meaningful student experience.)
SSEP provides community-wide engagement, with students immersed in a real on-orbit STEM research program. Each SSEP participating community formally engages a minimum of 300 students in real microgravity experiment design and proposal writing. Each community receives a research mini-laboratory capable of conducting a wide range of experiments across multiple disciplines, and is guaranteed to fly on ISS (after passing NASA flight safety review – all have passed to date). Read about the FME mini-lab currently being used on ISS. The flight experiment is selected through a real 2-step proposal review process (meet the STS-134 and STS-135 Step 2 Review Panels.) Students assemble, load, seal and ship to Houston the ACTUAL FLIGHT HARDWARE, and harvest their samples on the lab’s return from orbit. And students have their own research conference at the National Air and Space Museum. (Also see conference photos of student researchers at the bottom of THIS page.) SSEP is a remarkable opportunity for true immersion in real science, and across STEM disciplines.
We have also successfully held the line on cost at $20K per community (less than $67 per student experience!), and even a funding partner’s contribution at the $5K to $10K level has been exceedingly meaningful. (See the Cost page.)
I am proud to say that 16 SGCs have partnered with communities on the 3 SSEP flight opportunities to date (STS-134, STS-135, and Mission 1 to ISS):
AZ, CT, DC, FL, IN, IA, KY, LA, MA, MD, NE, NM, NC, OR, TX, WA
It was just 13 months ago that we launched SSEP, with the final flight of Shuttle Endeavour. Two months before that, this program was just a dream. And it would not have been realized without teamwork and partnership across myriad organizations like yours. I think we have really made a difference together. (Explore all the SSEP Partner Organizations.)
The SSEP Opportunity Relative to the Augmentation Proposal:
One important point relevant to SGCs is that while SSEP’s core focus is on grades 5-12, it is no longer restricted to pre-college grades. It has been extended to 4-year colleges and universities with an emphasis on Minority Serving Institutions; and to 2-year community colleges. We would very much like to work closely with you to see if we can get communities and institutions in your state – and of strategic interest to you – aboard this program.
** We are about to announce SSEP Mission 2 to the International Space Station (ISS) with real microgravity experiment design competitions in Spring 2012 and ferry flights to and from ISS in Fall 2012. It is a timeline consistent with Augmentation funding.
It should also be noted that we have communities in virtually every State that now want to participate in SSEP. We are dedicated to assisting all worthy communities in their effort to find funding – communities capable of submitting a formal, comprehensive, well thought out Implementation Plan. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) – my organization – was able to match funding partners with communities for 28 of the 39 communities that have participated in SSEP on STS-134, STS-135 and now engaged in SSEP Mission 1 to ISS. As standard operating procedure, we require the community to put forward a minimum 1:1 match, typically accomplished via fully burdened labor hours of their local program delivery team of educators.
**NCESSE will also provide all program impact data required by NASA at the completion of the grant, and on an as needed basis.
Quicky SSEP Refresher:
For each flight opportunity to orbit (on first Shuttle then ISS), each participating community is provided a real microgravity research mini-laboratory scheduled to fly. The latest opportunity – SSEP Mission 1 to ISS – is for experiments aboard ISS from March 30 to May 16, 2012 via Soyuz 30 and 29 (see Critical Timeline). An experiment design competition in each community — typically providing an opportunity for 300 to 1,000 students — allows student teams to design *real* experiments vying for their community’s reserved experiment slot. Additional SSEP programming leverages the flight design competition to engage the entire community, embracing a Learning Community Model for STEM education.
SSEP has a number of strategic national objectives: 1) to provide very real and immersive experiences in science and scientific research across the grade 5-16 pipeline; 2) help address the need to get our next generation of scientists and engineers into the pipeline so America can compete in the 21st century marketplace, and 3) with the retirement of the Shuttle, make sure that America’s human spaceflight program remains in the public eye by putting America’s newest National Laboratory – the International Space Station – to work, and front and center.
See the About SSEP page for a comprehensive overview of the program.
Some Relevant SSEP Benchmarks:
1. We have had 2 highly successful SSEP cycles on the final two flights of the U.S. Space Shuttle (STS-134 and STS-135), with 27 participating communities providing 30,700 grade 5-12 students the opportunity to participate; we received 1,027 student team proposals, with a typical team consisting of 5-6 students; 27 proposed experiments were selected for flight – one for each community; all 27 experiments passing formal NASA flight safety review and flew; students, teachers, and parents from across the community network attended the launches at KSC’s KARS Park (at NASA’s invitation), and we held concurrent community network meetings at FIT (read about the KSC and FIT Programs for STS-134 and for STS-135); and finally, the first SSEP Science Conference for student teams was held in July 2011 at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
2. Each community is required to submit a formal Implementation Plan that provides: an overview of their community; their strategic needs in STEM Education and how SSEP helps address those needs; and the detailed scope of their proposed program (number of schools, grade levels participating, number of students, and number of teachers engaged). We now require at least 300 students to be fully engaged in experiment design and writing formal proposals if we are to try and match a funding partner with a community.
3. Due to the experience we’ve gained with SSEP on STS-134 and STS-135, we have now enhanced the requirements for a community’s Implementation Plan. A community must demonstrate their ability to not only conduct SSEP across the audiences they define, but conduct it successfully. One benchmark for the enhanced planning – for SSEP Mission 1 to ISS, we have 12 communities participating, and are formally projecting a minimum of 1,090 student team proposals to be submitted. Compare this to the 1,027 submitted by the combined 27 communities participating in SSEP on STS-134 and STS-135.
Examples of Implementation Plans for SSEP Mission 1:
Charles County, MD, includes results of their participation on STS-135
funded at 100% by MD SGC
Pleasanton Nebraska
funded by NE SGC at 50% of total; and the Sherwood Foundation
Crown Point, Indiana, includes results of their participation on STS-135
funded by IN SGC at 100% of total
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, includes results of their participation on STS-135
funded by MA SGC at 33% of total; and Community Foundation of Central MA
Some Feedback from SGC Directors / Assistant Directors
Barrett Caldwell, INSGC Director, wrote a moving Blog Post on his experience: http://ssep.ncesse.org/2011/06/in-our-own-words-why-i-wanted-to-be-a-nasa-space-grant-director/
Terry Teays MDSGC Assistant Director wrote:
“The NASA Maryland Space Grant Consortium has been delighted to provide support for two Maryland school districts, one on STS-134 and one on STS-135. Providing this kind of life-changing opportunity to students is what keeps up energized to come to work every morning. We have been reading your posts and love the enthusiasm.”
Lots of Powerful Links To SSEP Web Pages
To see more comments and essays regarding the impact this program has made, visit the In Our Own Words page:
http://ssep.ncesse.org/communities/in-our-own-words/
A video clip of what we are trying to accomplish with SSEP:
http://www.tvworldwide.com/stemstream/
Here are all the participating communities thus far, with all partners (including SGC institutions) and their links: http://ssep.ncesse.org/communities/community-directory/
Here are all the finalist experiments, and selected flight experiments for STS-134 and STS-135, all selected experiments flew:
http://ssep.ncesse.org/communities/experiments-selected-for-flight/
The Mission Patches that flew on STS-134 and STS-135. Patches were selected from thousands submitted as part of grade K-12 art and design competitions within the SSEP participating communities as part of SSEP Community-wide Engagement:
http://ssep.ncesse.org/communities/mission-patches/
Featured Articles at NASA.gov, including one woith SSEP on ISS RESEARCH page:
Eleven More
Feature Article, NASA.gov, July 12, 2011
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/eleven-more.html
Student Scientists Fly Investigations to the Space Station
Feature Article, International Space Station RESEARCH News, NASA.gov, May 25, 2011
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/ssep.html
One Last Student Endeavour
Feature Article, NASA.gov, April 26, 2011
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/one-last-shuttle-endeavour.html
A good but rather incomplete sampling of media coverage:
http://ssep.ncesse.org/communities/in-the-news/
The July 31, 2011 National Announcement of Opportunity for Mission 1 to ISS:
http://goo.gl/gVCCI
PLEASE contact me if you would like to at least explore the possibility. I’m available 24/7 at my cell number and via email below.
Best wishes as always,
Jeff
Dr. Jeff Goldstein, Center Director
National Center for Earth and Space Science Education
Cell: 301-395-0770
Email: jeffgoldstein@ncesse.org
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