The goal of the pathways to the science, technology, academic readiness seminars (STARS) project is to reach underserved students with enriching stem education and activities to reduce achievement…

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded a $316,654.89 cooperative agreement to the San Jacinto Community College District, doing business as San Jacinto Community College, to implement the "Pathways to the STARS" project. The goal of the project is to provide enriching STEM education and activities to 1,350 underserved students in grades 4-10 in the Houston area, as well as engage their parents, in order to promote a larger STEM ecosystem and reduce achievement gaps in STEM careers. The project will offer after-school programs, summer camps, high school classes, and parent academies focused on NASA-mission related content such as space navigation, satellites, climate systems, water recycling, and Mars survival. There is no set-aside designation for this award, which has a performance period from April 2019 through September 2022. San Jacinto Community College is a public community college that has previously received federal grants and contracts to support education initiatives, including STEM programs for underserved populations.

The goal of the pathways to the science, technology, academic readiness seminars (STARS) project is to reach underserved students with enriching stem education and activities to reduce achievement gaps in stem careers. The program objectives are to provide a pipeline of NASA-mission focused content and activities targeting 1,350 low-income and under-represented participants from 4TH to 10TH grade in the houston area; promote a larger stem ecosystem; and engage parents of underserved students with access to stem activities to promote continued engagement. The audience for the pathways to the STARS project are school-aged students, starting with 9 and 10 year-olds, moving through middle school students, and students in the first two years of high school as well as their parents. Recruiting of students will take place at the four participating school districts on all elements of the project and include galena park, laporte, pasadena, and sheldon school districts as evidenced by letters of support. Industry partners such as jacobs engineering, bastion, barrios, leidos, and the city of houston S spaceport have also furnished letters of support to the project. The project is organized around an annual calendar with four major activities geared to afterschool (targeting a minimum of 400 students enrolled in 4-5TH grade), summer camps (750 students enrolled in 7-8TH grade), high school classes (200 students enrolled in 9-10TH grade) and parent academies (serving from 50-100 parents). Each of the proposed activity areas are built on NASA education products relevant to the four NASA directorates and include topics such as but not limited to space navigation, satellites, climate systems, water recycling, and mars survival kits. The primary proposed outcomes for the STARS pathway project include serving 2,700 or more students for two years; 25% or more of the first year students will continue with the pathways project into the second year; and the majority of students will be from underrepresented student groups.