Hartnell college, a minority serving institution has the intention to submit a solicitation for NASA's minority university research and education project (murep) aerospace academy. Hartnell NASA MAA…

Hartnell Community College District, a minority-serving institution, was awarded a $324,998 Cooperative Agreement by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to operate the Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Aerospace Academy. The program aims to increase participation and retention of historically underserved and underrepresented K-12 youth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Key activities include Saturday STEM academies, coding classes, expanding middle and high school STEM lab facilities, and teacher professional development. The project leverages partnerships with local school districts to create a sustainable STEM education model. This award does not have a set-aside designation.

Hartnell college, a minority serving institution has the intention to submit a solicitation for NASA's minority university research and education project (murep) aerospace academy. Hartnell NASA MAA has been in operation since the fall of 2015 and has been very successful in increasing participation and retention of historically under-served and underrepresented k-12 youth in the areas of stem. We would like to continue offering this outstanding program to our community. We plan on continuing to offer our saturday stem academies focused on our NASA curriculum enhanced activities and continuing to introduce coding to thousands of students from kindergarten to 6TH grade. We also plan on expanding our capacity with the middle and high school students by revamping our aerospace educational lab/maker space to invite them to participate in fun and exciting activities geared towards the upper grades using innovative technology and incorporating career technical education and workforce for those that might not be ready for college yet. Hartnell NASA MAA has had an incredible impact in our community and is now part of so many school's after-school programs and musts during the school year and the summer. We also intend to increase our partnership within the college and beyond by bringing in more community college students to our programs, local resources and more stem related industries who can inspire our students. We have managed to create a sustainable model that is funded in great part by the school districts and we would like to keep these partnerships excited with the resources NASA brings to the table. Focusing on teacher professional development is also a focus of our project, as well and improving our assessments and evaluation methods to show proof of our success. We hope to continue being partners with NASA and expand our program beyond our community.