Overview of NASA-Beyond Hayden
A joint education project of YERC & NASA
In late 2005, YERC started a unique, non-traditional, NASA-funded internship program titled Beyond Hayden: Exploration, Inspiration, and Education in Yellowstone. The program—the central science topic of which is water management—is designed to
- inspire and educate future scientists and science educators,
- increase the use of NASA ESE resources in STEM education, and
- set the foundation for a long-term national program for servicing Native American and rural American communities.
Beyond Hayden seeks to educate and inspire the scientists of tomorrow based on ecological and geospatial science training centered on Yellowstone National Park. The project includes student educator and student researcher paths and serves Native American and rural American student populations. Project collaborators include Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), MOSS (Montana Outdoor Science School), the Biodiversity Conservation Divisions of Turner Enterprises, and Dr. Cathy Whitlock of Montana State University.
Goals
Beyond Hayden has three overarching goals
Those goals are
- to inspire and educate future scientists and future science educators, with a focus on Native American and rural American populations
- to increase the use of NASA Earth Science data and resources in STEM education, and
- to become sustainable.
Measures for project success
Success in meeting Beyond Hayden's three overarching goals will be measured by the completion, by project end, of over a dozen project deliverables, all overseen by YERC and many assisted by YERC interns:
- Successful program “graduation” of 39 intern equivalents (i.e., some interns may serve more than one three-month internship), of which we expect 25% or more to be Native Americans, ~25% to work in student educator roles, and ~50% to work in student researcher roles.
- Successful incorporation of NASA ESE data resources into a minimum of three existing Project WET curricula.
- Successful completion of three tribal workshops using the new Project WET curricula. These workshops will be focused on the home tribes of Project WET interns, with a current desire to target the Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Ft Bellknap, and Salish Kootenai tribe.
- Successful placement of three Native American students in tribal jobs associated with STEM fields.
- Successful incorporation of NASA ESE data resources into the MOSS Ways of the West (WoW) program, and then use in WoW program (currently offering ~90 classes per year).
- Successful creation of a NASA data-inclusive Ways of the West documentation to facilitate transfer of the program nationwide.
- Successful publication of one paper from Dr. Whitlock with sufficient intern input to warrant acknowledgement.
- Successful yearly NASA data product incorporation into Yellowstone National Park Interpretive Center materials, shown on their website, and including hyperlink to NASA website with description of the science behind and value of NASA ESE data source in public land management decision making.
- Successful yearly NASA data product incorporation into the Biodiversity Conservation Divisions of Turner Enterprises materials, shown on their website, and including hyperlink to NASA website with description of the science behind and value of NASA ESE data source in private land management decision making.
- Successful student educator will contribute directly to the incorporation of geospatial tools using the NASA data for water management and related natural resource issues.
- Successful student researchers will contribute directly to the development of geospatial tools using the NASA data for water management and related natural resource issues.
- Successful creation by YERC and its interns of a project website profiling interns including photos and direct words from them to be used in subsequent year’s recruitment efforts, describing education and research programs in progress and how NASA data sources are being employed, describing collaborators to project, highlighting NASA ESE data use by collaborators; providing project reports.
- Successful yearly completion by YERC of intern workshop training efforts and year-end YERC/NASA Education Workshop.
- Successful yearly program evaluation, including posting to website.
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Inspiration
To inspire students we must first capture their imaginations!
Integral to NASA’s core mission is a call to “inspire the next generation of explorers.” To inspire students we must first capture their imaginations. No better place exists for capturing the minds of students (and educators and researchers!) than Yellowstone, which has been fascinating mankind since the Sheepeaters—a Shoshone clan—first walked across its geyser basins, and then later when John Colter reported amazing stories of steaming vents and boiling mudpots to captivated, though unbelieving, eastern audiences. Colter’s words alone were sufficient to inspire 19th century cross-continent Earth science explorations, among them the Hayden Expedition of 1871.
In the spirit of the Hayden Expedition
Sanctioned in 1869 by the U.S. Congress, Dr. Ferdinand Hayden gathered an unprecedented expedition team: private sector scientists, agency personnel, and even the U.S. military. The group brought the latest in technology including large format cameras and survey equipment to greatly improve a variety of maps. The goal of this famous expedition was to explore and document the Yellowstone region and its natural wonders. The expedition did just that and as preliminary information, photos, paintings, and maps arrived in Washington D.C., Congress was quick to act, creating the world’s first national park. We present this proposal in the spirit of the Hayden Expedition and with an explicit goal of employing NASA data to extend the spirit of that expedition. As they inspired the Earth scientists of their day—and indeed the whole of the U.S.—using the latest in mapping technology and education techniques, so can we.
Yellowstone is no less fascinating today than it was in 1871
The ~20 million acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) contains the world’s premier collection of geothermal features; diverse native plant communities; relatively intact large-scale processes (e.g., fire, floods, and animal migrations); the full suite of large carnivore species present prior to European settlement (including fox, wolverine, coyotes, lynx, wolves, mountain lions, black bears, and grizzly bears); the headwaters for surface and ground water flow to a large section of the U.S.; the last stronghold of two native cutthroat trout species (Yellowstone [Oncorhynchus clarki bouvieri] and the closely related Snake River [O. c. spp.]); and lies at the interface of several major North American eco-regions—as such it includes a diverse mix of forests and grasslands, mountains and high plains, and wet and arid regions.
Yellowstone is the perfect location to inspire the next generation of NASA explorers, helping them push today’s exciting Earth and natural sciences knowledge boundaries, much in the spirit of the Sheepeaters, Colter, and the famous Hayden Expedition from which our proposing team derives inspiration.
For intern opportunities, please see our opportunities page.
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