Seeks to bring students to the kennedy space center s education forum as a way to broaden their horizon and expose them to the diversity of career options in stem fields. Additionally, the…

Seeks to bring students to the kennedy space center s education forum as a way to broaden their horizon and expose them to the diversity of career options in stem fields. Additionally, the experience will help US in our mission to help them make the connectivity between those opportunities and their academic course work in those related disciplines. Through an application and essay contest on the importance of stem to the future of the U.S., (40) students will be selected to attend from the middle and high school talladega currently works with through their outreach programs. Accompanying the students will be 5 students from talladega college who will serve as chaperones and the CO-PI from talladega college on this project. The principals and one science teacher from both schools will attend as well. The science teachers will each act as the liaison from their school on the follow up educational activities. Lastly, the counselor from each school will attend to increase their knowledge of stem careers and strengthen their ability to talk about and promote those majors and careers to the students seeking college and career advice. To help ensure parents are part of the process of promoting stem careers, we need to help parents understand the importance of this opportunity for their students as well as increase their awareness of stem careers. To this end, parents of the students selected will be invited to attend a special orientation along with their children. The orientation will give them guidelines for the trip, talk about NASA s commitment to the overall efforts, as well as talladega college s. Students will also have a chance to meet each other and the adults who will accompany them on the trip. The follow-up education plan will incorporate activities similar to those that students will experience on the trip to give exposure to students not able to attend. These activities will include presentation from talladega college majors to high school students and presentations from high school students to middle school students. Additionally, a team of educators and students from both schools and talladega have banded together to form an educational team who will develop grade-appropriate, hands-on stem educational activities that can be incorporated into their science, math and technology curriculums.