NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)

About

The NAI E/PO Program spans higher education, K-12 education, informal education, and public outreach through a portfolio of projects implemented by the E/PO Leads from each of NAI’s teams. Each team has a unique E/PO plan for its five year term. Each team’s plan draws strength from the scientific and educational expertise of the team, and significant involvement of team members.

NAI Central provides leadership, coordination, and administration services for this group, as well as supplemental funds for their activities. NAI Central also represents the program within NASA and to the external community, facilitating official communications by serving as a single point of contact on behalf of the larger group. NAI Central’s leadership of the E/PO program takes the form of setting the overall direction in alignment with NASA’s policies and guidelines, monitoring its progress, and making changes when needed.

The program measures success not only by the quantity and quality of the teams’ activities, but also by its ability to effectively leverage funds, partnerships, and expertise. These attributes are enabled by achieving what is perhaps the program’s most important metric, the ability to collaborate for mutual benefit. The NAI E/PO Leads, a working group of individuals distributed across the country, have emerged as a unified community of astrobiology education professionals who value communicating and collaborating with one another.

Whether communicating one-on-one, as small groups via email, or through monthly teleconferences, the group reaps the benefits of working together. Because E/PO budgets are relatively small, it is vital to achieve maximum leveraging for maximum impact. Coordination has improved projects through the sharing of new knowledge, best practices, and evaluative data, helping the group replicate successful strategies and avoid making the same mistakes twice. Regular communication also facilitates the sharing of information on existing projects and plans for new ones, reducing duplicative efforts, and matching complementary ones.

A Portfolio of Projects
The portfolio of projects across the teams represents a variety of working practices which maintain a healthy balance. The projects reflect both community-based efforts seated in the team’s local area, and broad-scale, national-level opportunities which are often initiated via contact with NAI Central. The portfolio includes projects that offer a range of experiences for learners, from exposure to astrobiology (films and television programs), to in-depth examination of scientific concepts (week-long summer institutes for teachers; summer undergraduate internship programs). The portfolio contains projects that are unique to the NAI with externally developed projects which NAI has leveraged. The projects reflect both focus on a team’s scientific specialty, and integration across the spectrum of astrobiological investigations. A balance is also achieved by supporting projects that are accessible by all (interpretive signs in Yellowstone National Park), with projects that are designed for a specific group (NASA and the Navajo Nation).

For more information, please contact NAI’s E/PO Coordinator, Daniella Scalice at daniella.m.scalice@nasa.gov