Call for Participation 2002

Dear Colleague Letter

Call for Participation

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Instructions for electronic proposal submission

Questions and answers (Revised October 3, 2002)

Relevant documents and links

ESSE 21 Home Page

ESSE 21, sponsored by NASA through the Universities Space Research Association, is a collaborative education program offering small grants to engage an interdisciplinary community of faculty and scientists in the development of courses, curricula and degree programs and sharing of learning resources focused on the fundamental understanding and application of Earth system principles for the undergraduate and first year graduate classroom and laboratory.

ESSE 21 encourages participation from a wide range of undergraduate institutions - two year city, community, technical and tribal colleges, four year liberal arts colleges and research universities

ESSE 21 proposals should offer to develop and implement courses, learning modules, curricula, degree programs or other learning experiences in Earth system and global change science at the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as develop or extend institutional capacity for Earth system science education in general.

Non-U.S. and government organizations and institutions may not apply for funding, but are encouraged to participate as ESSE 21 Associates via short letter proposal

ESSE 21 intends to select via peer review five teams to begin work as the first cadre of the Program in the spring semester of the 2002/3 academic year.

ESSE 21 seeks to actively engage underrepresented academic communities. At least two of the five teams selected will be from accredited postsecondary minority institutions as defined by the Dept of Education (http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/minorityinst.html)

Proposers are encouraged to demonstrate their ability to begin work immediately in the spring semester of academic year 2002/03

ESSE 21 intends to release this Call for Participation annually subject to continued NASA funding


ESSE 21 proposals:

* Must address Earth system and global change science learning at the undergraduate or undergraduate/graduate level

* Must be submitted from an interdisciplinary team of at least two different disciplines, either from the same or different institutions

* Must agree to waive institutional overhead fees, or propose cost sharing (other than faculty salary) of an amount equal to or greater than institutional overhead fees if they cannot be waived

* Must include a budget signed by an appropriate institutional representative not exceeding $35,000 per year for each of two years

* Must offer and implement a means to evaluate the success of the effort, both as a formative assessment and summative evaluation of the educational impact, following guidelines provided in the CFP

* Should not request faculty salary support for teaching. Up to one month of summer salary or release time support for teaching or research faculty per year will be considered where there is need and justification for organization of broad interdisciplinary teams and development of interdisciplinary course content. (Revised October 3, 2003.)

* Should not request funds for travel - program travel support will be provided separately. Mileage allowance for local travel may be requested if the team is not co-located.

* Should not request funds for major research equipment. Equipment requests of under $5000 from grant support that aids in classroom and laboratory teaching will be considered (e.g. projection equipment) but must be matched by institutional support.

* Should identify the intent to participate and compete as a Stage 1 (entry level), Stage 2 (intermediate) or Stage 3 (advanced) institution as defined in the CFP

* Should identify a NASA collaborator (either at a NASA center or within a project supported by NASA) or request assistance in identifying a NASA collaborator

* Should not exceed 10 pages in length (exclusive of cover page, abstract, CVs and other supporting materials)

* Should be submitted electronically as a PDF or MS Word file following instructions on the ESSE 21 web site - institutional signature pages or complete proposals may be mailed if necessary

Proposal PIs / coPIs must agree:

* to share freely the learning resources developed with their ESSE 21 support
* to submit learning resources developed to the NASA ESE education product peer review
* to contribute proactively to the ESSE 21 community dialog and faculty exchange
* to participate in the annual ESSE 21 3-day team meeting
* to submit an annual report detailing the progress of the teaming effort and the numbers of students impacted in the classroom and otherwise

Schedule:

September 15, 2002 Call for Participation released
October 25, 2002 E-mail of intent to propose requested (to esse21@usra.edu)
November 15, 2002 Proposals due
December 15, 2002 Selections announced
Jan/Feb, 2003 First team meeting
February 15, 2003 Institutional sub-award in place
Jan/Feb, 2004 Second team meeting, progress reports due