NASA's Science Activation Program Achievements and Opportunities (2020) / Chapter Skim
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2 Vision and Objectives
2 Vision and Objectives
Pages 29-40
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From page 29... ...
SciAct'S CENTRAL VISION In order to understand the role of NASA's SciAct Program within the broader domain of STEM education in the United States, the committee looked to multiple sources of evidence for documented descriptions of NASA's vision for SciAct. According to SciAct's documentation, its vision is To share the story, the science, and the adventure of NASA's scientific ex plorations of our home planet, the solar system, and the universe beyond, through stimulating and informative activities and experiences created 29
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From page 30... ...
The CAN notes that part of the rationale for SciAct is to "increase the overall coherence of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) science education program leading to more effective, sustainable, and efficient utilization of SMD science discoveries and learning experiences and to meet overall SMD science education objectives.
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From page 31... ...
; and • other science programs in NASA's infrastructure (e.g., GLOBE, Night Sky Network, etc.) SciAct awardees are regarded as NASA partners who bring educational expertise in designing and delivering the mechanisms for target audiences to learn and understand science content related to the four disciplines of NASA's SMD (heliophysics, earth science, planetary science, and astrophysics)
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From page 32... ...
The committee notes that this first objective is, in some ways, a restatement of SciAct's vision statement: SciAct intends to support STEM education through the mobilization of NASA's existing resources and assets. Practically, this means that awardees are tasked with translating NASA assets for educational use by creating new materials that can be used by learners or educators and incorporated into programs that will allow learners and students to engage with NASA data and SMEs.
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From page 33... ...
To the extent that SciAct positions the improvement of science literacy as one of its primary objectives, the committee feels it is important for SciAct to draw upon the most recent scholarly assessments of how science literacy is defined, enacted, and measured.2 Recent research on science literacy posits that the term should encompass more than just basic knowledge of science facts. Indeed, contemporary definitions of science literacy have expanded to include understandings of scientific processes and practices, familiarity with how science and scientists work, a capacity to weigh and evaluate the products of science, and an ability to engage in civic decisions about the value of science.
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From page 34... ...
Community science literacy does not require that each individual attain a particular threshold of knowledge, skills, and abilities; rather, it is a matter of that community having sufficient shared capability necessary to address a science-related issue. Research in this field is still emergent, though documented cases of communities' efforts to leverage collective science knowledge, skills, and abilities in pursuit of science-related policy outcomes abound: examples of these cases include, among many others, efforts by the LGBT community to impact AIDS treatment policy (Epstein, 1995)
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From page 35... ...
Approximately half of the projects measure the change in content knowledge in the audiences engaged; only three projects attempt to gauge contextual issues, such as attitude, behavior, and identity, and none considers science literacy in the context of a community. Moreover, even if all awards were consistently measuring outcomes, the number of factors contributing to science literacy at the national level mean that it is extremely challenging to isolate SciAct as the sole contributing factor to whether or not Americans are becoming more or less science literate.
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From page 36... ...
As a result, the committee finds that while advancing national education goals broadly informs the SciAct Program vision and some project activities support this objective, this objective is not measurable with respect to the SciAct portfolio overall. In 2018, CoSTEM released a new strategic plan with three new goals3 1.
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From page 37... ...
The most explicit rationale for including leveraging efforts through partnerships as a program objective is offered through reference to the CoSTEM report (Committee on STEM Education, 2013, p.
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From page 38... ...
promoting STEM education and that working independently of these other institutions would miss an opportunity to broaden the impact of federal investments. In its review of SciAct documentation, the committee identified two broad goals that NASA appears to have for SciAct partnerships: disseminating NASA SMD assets and broadening participation in STEM.4 The committee turned to SciAct's own documentation of the relationships across projects for greater clarity on how SciAct intends to leverage partnerships (see Figure 2-1)
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From page 39... ...
The committee applauds the aspirations of the SciAct Program overall and finds that three of the top-level science education objectives -- enable STEM education, improve U.S. scientific literacy, and advance national education goals -- describe ends to which the program wishes to contribute, including the desire to contribute to the larger education agenda of the federal government agencies.
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