Education

Outreach Programs

An integral part of the CLASS mission is to give back to the wider community. The CLASS team is committed to providing a dynamic education and outreach program in support of SSERVI and is looking forward to coordinating with the Central SSERVI Office to create a unified education and public outreach (EPO) program for NASA. The CLASS EPO program is designed around three themes selected to be inclusive of multiple communities of learners and to leverage and enhance existing outstanding educational and outreach materials:

  1. infusing Arts learning into STEM (STEM > STEAM)
  2. integrating experiences in both the formal classroom with educational field experiences at informal venues or in afterschool programs; and
  3. broadening audiences to include ALL learners, especially those with disabilities.

By widely disseminating CLASS research; via internet streaming of CLASS seminars; and through other programs, CLASS EPO will reach out to teachers, students, and the scientifically-curious public across the country. It is CLASS’s goal to foster the exploration science community of the 21st century by inspiring future generations with real-world science and technology development.

Advanced Exploration Science Formal Education

To initiate the training of the next generation of planetary scientists, the CLASS team members will develop interdisciplinary course materials relevant to planetary science for a range of graduate and advanced undergraduate courses. This material will be made available to the larger SSERVI community and will include:

  • Several lectures on planetary geology and processes that can be added to undergraduate survey courses in astronomy, geology, or physics.
  • Planetary science-related course modules for advanced undergraduate courses in planetary geology, planetary geochemistry, and plasma physics.
  • The overhaul of the current advanced courses taught by UF and UCF so that the courses could be offered jointly by UF and UCF via webcast/video-conference to be available to students from both institutions and to the entire CLASS Network.
  • The team would also develop a capstone graduate seminar course in planetary science. This course would be the joint responsibility of the initial hires at UCF and will be designed to be taught as a video-conference and webcast course to bring in students to the CLASS Network.