CO_FY16_Year2_APD Colorado Space Grant Consortium Lead Institution: University of Colorado Boulder Director: Chris Koehler Telephone Number: 303.492.3141 Consortium URL: http://spacegrant.colorado.edu Grant Number: NNX15AK04H Lines of Business (LOBs): NASA Internships, Fellowships, and Scholarships; Stem Engagement; Institutional Engagement; Educator Professional Development A. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program consists of 52 state-based, university- led Space Grant Consortia in each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Annually, each consortium receives funds to develop and implement student fellowships and scholarships programs; interdisciplinary space-related research infrastructure, education, and public service programs; and cooperative initiatives with industry, research laboratories, and state, local, and other governments. Space Grant operates at the intersection of NASA’s interest as implemented by alignment with the Mission Directorates and the state’s interests. Although it is primarily a higher education program, Space Grant programs encompass the entire length of the education pipeline, including elementary/secondary and informal education. The Colorado Space Grant Consortium is a Designated Consortium funded at a level of $760,000 for fiscal year 2016. B. PROGRAM GOALS • Population of students engaged in COSGC hands-on programs (awardees and non- awardees) will be at least 40% women and 23.7% from ethnic minority populations underrepresented in STEM fields. • Maintain student hands-on programs at all 8 COSGC Minority Serving Institutions and engaged at least 30 students on MSI campuses. • 30% of COSGC NASA funds will be awarded directly to students. • Award 80 scholarships to support students working on hands-on projects. • Facilitate the RockOn Workshop and RockSat-C and –X programs in collaboration with NASA Wallops Flight Facility. • Continue to facilitate statewide activities DemoSat (balloon payloads), Robotics Challenge, and Undergraduate Space Research Symposium. • Engage 120 non-award participants in Higher Education (HE)hands-on projects. • Every COSGC affiliate will facilitate at least 1 HE hands-on student project. • At least 4 affiliates will facilitate 2 HE hands-on student projects. • At least 3 affiliates will facilitate 3 or more HE student projects. • Facilitate 1 low-Earth orbiting satellite project. • Continue internship collaborations with Lockheed Martin and Digital Globe. 1 • At least 3 affiliates will facilitate Research Infrastructure (RI) projects on their home campuses. • At least 15 students will be engaged in RI projects. • Provide teacher training of at least 5 weeks of instruction for at least 60 teachers total. C. PROGRAM/PROJECT BENEFITS TO PROGRAM AREAS 1) COSGC team was one of 5 teams that made it to the finals for the NASA BIG Idea Competition at Langley. [Authentic Hands-On Projects, NIFS, Workforce Development] 2) Completion of the first combined Community College sounding rocket payload mission, with the successful launch of the payload summer 2016. Established framework to continue the effort and resulted in presentation of results from the RICH detector at the 4- corners regional meeting of the American Physical Society in October 2016. Students won the Best Student Talk award. [Authentic Hands-On Projects, NIFS, Community College Engagement, Workforce Development] 3) COSGC celebrated the 10th year of the Colorado Robotics Challenge. The event is in collaboration with the Great Sand Dunes National Park and challenges student teams to build autonomous robots to demonstrate at the site of the testing of NASA’s Viking landers. The event continues to attract more student teams every year. [Authentic Hands-On Projects, NIFS, Community College Engagement, Workforce Development] D. PROGRAM ACCOMPLISHMENTS • NASA Internships, Fellowships, and Scholarships (NIFS): a. 238 students who were engaged in hands-on projects were awarded scholarships (Goal – 80) b. Awards were 35% women and 22% underrepresented (Goal 40% & 23.7%) • Higher Education projects: a. Student projects were facilitated at all 8 COSGC Minority Serving Institutions (Goal – 8). b. 90 students were engaged at the above-mentioned MSIs (Goal – 30) c. COSGC facilitated the RockOn Workshop and RockSat-C and –X programs in collaborations with NASA Wallops Flight Facility. d. Engaged 317 non-awardee students in Higher Education (HE) hands-on projects (Goal - 120). e. ALL COSGC affiliates facilitated at least 1HE hands-on project. (Goal – ALL). f. 6 affiliates facilitated 2 HE hands-on projects (Goal - 4) – ACC, RRCC, OJC, CCD, CSU-Pueblo, UCCS. g. 11 affiliates facilitated 3 or more HE hands-on projects (Goal – 3) – ASU, CCA, CMU, CSM, CSU, FLC, PCC, TSJC, UNC, WSCU, CU. Higher Education (HE) Projects included: • Astronomical Observing 2 • Short- and long-duration High Altitude Balloon Payloads • Autonomous Robotics Projects • Sounding Rocket Payloads • Undergraduate Laboratory Research • Senior Design Teams • Training Workshops • Theoretical Physics Projects • Balloon Payload Courses • Robotics Courses • Underrepresented Student Society Workshops • Participation in NASA sponsored competitions • Research Infrastructure projects: a. Facilitated 1 low-earth orbiting satellite projects (Goal – 1) at CU b. Continued internship collaborations with Lockheed Martin and Digital Globe. RI Projects included: • Earth orbiting CubeSat missions • Graduate space-focused research projects • Precollege projects: a. At the time of this report, no teacher workshops have been facilitated. They are scheduled for March and April 2017 (the final 2 months of the period of performance). Reporting of total workshops and numbers of teachers engaged will be reported via OEPM. • Informal Education projects: a. 4 COSGC affiliate institutions facilitated 12 activities, engaging 447 K-12 students and community members. As an ad-hoc activity, there are not specific goals. E. PROGRAM CONTRIBUTIONS TO NASA EDUCATION PERFORMANCE GOALS • Diversity: COSGC includes: o 8 Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) o 9 two-year colleges o 1 four-year baccalaureate colleges o 4 four-year baccalaureate through masters institutions o 5 universities through PhD o 1 non-profit organization • 35% of 238 scholarships were awarded to women • 22% of 238 scholarships were awarded to minority students underrepresented in STEM disciplines. • 98% of 238 scholarships were awarded to undergraduate students • Of the 317 students participating who did not receive fellowship/scholarship awards: o 29% were women 3 o 18% were students from ethnic minority populations underrepresented in STEM disciplines • Overall COSGC population of 555 engaged students included: o 32% women o 20% underrepresented minority • Of 30 faculty involved: o 20% were women o 5% were underrepresented • Minority Serving Institution Collaborations: Authentic hands-on student projects were facilitated at all COSGC MSIs. These included high altitude balloon payloads, autonomous robotics projects, astronomical observing opportunities, and facilitation of specialized courses including Introduction to Experimental Design, Robotics, and Data Analysis. • Office of Education Annual Performance Indicators: o API 2.4.1: ED-16-1 134 (Number of NIFS to underrepresented students) o API 2.4.2: ED-16-2 0 (Number of educators) o API 2.4.4: ED-16-4 12 (Number of informal education events) Events included: o Development and facilitation of hands-on displays for Math/Science Center o Facilitation of community Robotics Makerspace o Facilitation of Rocket Day at Local School District o Mentoring of K-12 student First Lego League teams o Tours of student labs and projects, coupled with hands-on activities to engage younger students and general public in missions. o API 2.4.5: ED-16-5 447 (Number of K-12 students) F. IMPROVEMENTS MADE IN THE PAST YEAR • Review of outcomes and lessons learned from the first combined community college sounding rocket project. Determined the program should continue. Awarded supplemental funds to three COSGC community college campuses to begin second iteration of the program, incorporating improvements. • Awarded supplemental funds to support starting work on new statewide initiatives including robotic wearables workshop series and competition; development of workshop for students with visual impairments; and new Mars habitat program. • Aims Community College has established the high-altit ude balloon payload program int o a new course on campus. The result has been the most effective facilitation of balloon payload projects on the Aims campus since Aims joined COSGC in 2015. This was made possible, by the efforts of the Community College of Aurora Space Grant that successfully 4 established a balloon payload course within the state system (Introduction to Experimental Design) that is now available to all Colorado community colleges. G. CURRENT AND PROJECTED CHALLENGES • All COSGC programs continue to actively recruit and retain an inclusive population of students on every campus. While most are either meeting or coming very close to the stated goals for underrepresented students, all campuses continue to struggle to keep the numbers at or above the goals. Most frustrating is when an approach that has been successful for multiple years, suddenly does not work. What makes this challenge less formidable, is that all affiliate directors are committed to continue the work and to continue to support each other in the efforts.