The south dakota space grant consortium (sdsgc) and its partners are willing and ready to join NASA in its efforts to inspire america s next generation of explorers and innovators. South dakota is…

The south dakota space grant consortium (sdsgc) and its partners are willing and ready to join NASA in its efforts to inspire america s next generation of explorers and innovators. South dakota is full of eager, bright, creative, hard-working children who have great potential to become the highly educated and well-prepared workforce that will effectively manage and lead the nation s laboratories and research centers of tomorrow. To help south dakota s low-income, minority and female middle school students have equal access to these dreams that solid stem education can prepare them for, the sdsgc and the SD department of education 21ST century community learning center program (cclc) proposes SD summers of innovation as a plan to build a statewide network that will link organizations with stem resources and the local cclc s that serve the high-poverty children of our state. As a team, the SD SOI partners will build the capacity of community and school-based organizations to engage underserved students in high quality stem content in summer and extended learning experiences tailored to meet local needs. SD SOI will support the infusion of NASA themes and resources in summer and extended learning environments. And, this project will facilitate the alignment of summer and extended programming with the formal education community to support coordinated and sustained engagement in stem content. To accomplish these goals, SD SOI will start by providing science, technology, engineering and mathematics professional development to over 150 certified middle school teachers and cclc staff members. At least 2000 students will participate in 40 or more hours of stem activities in camps conducted by the newly trained teachers. At least another five hundred students will participate in camps brought to their cclc site by science museums or held in university settings across the state. Scholarships and travel stipends will be provided to increase the accessibility of these opportunities. The trained teachers will be supported in their efforts by a SD SOI teacher coordinator who will link them to low and no cost resources and people that will aid their efforts to infuse NASA content into the formal education environment. Through their cclc afterschool programs, robotics teams, starlab and geodome programs, stem events and new opportunities offered by their classroom teachers, over 2500 south dakota middle school students will participate in extended learning opportunities that will expose them each to twenty-five additional hours of stem-based learning. A key outcome of this project will be the establishment of tightly connected network of partners joined together to meet the stem needs of south dakota students. This network can serve as a launch point and model for achieving future goals.