NASA ESTEEM – TCU Grant Program for Tribal Colleges and Universities

Consult Appendix E Section 3 for more eligibility information.
NASA’s Office of Education’s mission is to advance high quality STEM education. Through this solicitation, NASA is strengthening involvement with higher education institutions to ensure that NASA can meet future workforce needs in STEM fields. Participation in NASA projects and research stimulates increasing numbers of students to continue their studies at all levels of the higher education continuum and earn advanced degrees in these critical fields.
The goal of the ESTEEM – TCU activity is to use NASA’s unique contributions, through collaboration with tribal institutions, to improve the quality of the Nation’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education in Earth system science (ESS), Climate Resiliency and culturally relevant, place-based educational practices in order to:
– Strengthen the capacity of TCUs to offer and conduct STEM undergraduate degree seeking programs with a focus on Earth system science (ESS) and Climate Resiliency.
– Increase undergraduate involvement and interest in Earth system science (ESS) and Climate Resiliency, educate students on the significance of STEM and Earth system science (ESS) in their culture, and positively influence the perception of their ability to participate and excel in STEM fields.
– Increase the preparedness of undergraduate pre-service secondary education STEM and Earth system science (ESS) teachers in content mastery and curriculum development of culturally relevant, place-based education.
– Create a diverse, highly skilled, and motivated future workforce in Earth Systems Science and Climate Resiliency related sciences.
To achieve these goals, ESTEEM – TCU seeks to establish and/or increase the undergraduate program capacity, teaching and learning about Earth System Science and Climate Resiliency, through the following objectives:
• Objective 1: Advance the undergraduate program capacity (students, faculty and curriculum development), needed to increase the number of underrepresented/underserved undergraduate students prepared for either employment or to enter graduate school in STEM fields relevant to Earth system science (ESS) and Climate resiliency, in a culturally relevant manner.
• Objective 2: Advance opportunities for underrepresented/underserved student success within the STEM pipeline with a focus on culturally informed transition planning for associate degree completion to bachelor degree programs, bachelor to graduate degree programs, emphasizing retention through to completion.
• Objective 3: Increase the preparedness of undergraduate pre-service secondary