Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the - Solar System ...

ties to other branches of science and technology, enabling the field to contribute to science education
in uniquely powerful ways. Planetary exploration is also increasingly an international endeavor.
3. To develop a workforce for the 21st century. Planetary exploration can play a central role
in raising U.S. science literacy at all levels from kindergarten through university, and within the
general public as well. 4 Many of the breakthroughs being made in our understanding of the solar
system involve close connections with other scientific fields such as geology, geochemistry, and
biology, developments which also find increasing application in our everyday lives.
Education and Outreach Opportunities
Technological advances over the past decade have dramatically changed the nature of public
outreach. Nearly instant public availability of raw images from planetary missions, and global access
to planetary data, feeds growing online communities of committed space enthusiasts. Interested
members of the public can be informed of discoveries and mission events as they happen through
social media. At the same time, the decline of traditional science journalism, with its ability to
synthesize results into a coherent whole and present them to a mass audience, and the everaccelerating
news cycle, may erode scientific understanding by the public. It is crucial, then, for
scientists themselves to make their work and findings comprehensible, appealing, and available to the
public.
The federal government provides significant support for many informal education and
outreach activities. In the past, NASA devoted roughly one percent of the cost of major missions to
education and public outreach and created imaginative websites and activities concerning its missions
to engage students, teachers, and the public.
Although the funding for education and public outreach by NASA increased from 1996 to
2004, it has leveled off in the past half decade. Recent National Research Council studies have
indicated that for a better return on the federal investment in education and public outreach, a more
rigorous program of assessment is needed of outcomes and efficacy across the entire spectrum of
space science education and public outreach activities. 5 This is particularly important in the many
less formal outreach activities. 6
Much effort is required to transform raw scientific data into materials that inform and appeal
to the general public. NASA planetary science funding is used for education and public outreach
activities based on the discoveries of planetary missions. Efforts to integrate effective outreach
should be directly embedded within each planetary mission. The committee strongly endorses
NASA’s informal guideline that a minimum of 1 percent of the cost of each mission be set aside
from the project budget for education and public outreach activities. Modest additional funding
must also be set aside to convey to the public the important scientific results from the longer-term
supporting research and analysis programs, and individual scientists should be strongly encouraged to
participate in communicating the research of their research broadly.
The committee also encourages organizing and maintaining NASA’s educational efforts,
matched to national educational standards, through science education and public outreach forums,
formal content review, and newly evolving product databases. Local efforts, in addition to national
4 Education in STEM as important areas of competency is emphasized in, for example, the America
COMPETES Act (H.R. 2272), initiatives within the U.S. Department of Education and National Science
Foundation, and in Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter
Economic Future, a report of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and
Institute of Medicine (The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2007).
5 National Research Council, NASA’s Elementary and Secondary Education Program: Review and
Critique, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2008.
6 As highlighted in National Research Council, Learning Science in Informal Environments: People,
Places, and Pursuits (P. Bell, B. Lewenstein, A.W. Shouse, and M.A. Feder, eds.), The National Academies
Press, Washington, D.C., 2009.
PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION
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