K-12 Program

Inspire, Engage, and Educate High School & Middle School Students

K-12 Program

One of our goals here at the NASA URC/BCCSO is to inspire, engage and educate K-12 and undergraduate students through our outreach programs. Our outreach strategies are directly linked to BCCSO's mission of fostering higher education in the STEM fields. NASA URC/BCCSO outreach efforts often take on an educational component to disseminate our ideas and concepts.  At BCCSO, we believe in information transfer which leads to increased science literacy among our targeted underrepresented K-12 student populations in the Washington,  DC Metropolitan area. If you're here with the thoughts like "What materials should I use to write my capstone project?", this online collection is for you.

Science Tours for Students

BCCSO conducts tours each for local area high school and middle school students at our Beltsville Research Campus throughout the year.  Visits include hands-on scientific experiments for students in grades 9-12 in the areas of interest to NASA. Our objective at the Howard University Beltsville Campus is to provide students with grade-related experiments in areas such as climate control and air quality.
Launch a Weather Balloon at Beltsville! Students have the opportunity to work with our graduate students to launch weather balloons to perform a sounding of the atmosphere.  As the data is collected in real-time, students can utilize that data in exercises designed to introduce them to how weather forecasts are developed.  

BCCSO Buddy Program

In the BCCSO Buddy Program, middle school and high school students have the opportunity to work one-to-one with our graduate students on actual research projects.  Students are paired off and work side by side on relevant research projects.  Students often conduct research in our Beltsville lab or in the field.  Our research facility is housed on a large campus (110 acres) and home to a variety of research and scientific projects.  

BCCSO Weather Camp

Middle school and high school students experience a day of fun and research in the summertime at our BCCSO Weather Camp.  During the day’s events, students participate in hands-on scientific experiments for students in grades 9-12 in areas of interest to NASA.