SCISTARTER and NSTA Announce Partnership to Connect Educators and Students to Researchers through Citizen Science Projects.
ARLINGTON, VA. (September 20, 2012) –SciStarter, LLC, a Delaware-based corporation that connects people to opportunities to collaborate with scientists on cutting-edge research projects and informal science activities, is teaming up the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)
to present a dynamic citizen science project showcase appropriate for elementary, middle, high school, and college level participants.
Beginning in October, a select number of SciStarter projects will be featured on the NSTA website each day and shared with teachers through newsletters, blogs and social media. These curated citizen science opportunities–ranging from analyzing distant galaxies to monitoring frog, firefly or whale populations, to detecting home and body microbiomes—will allow teachers and students to connect with researchers and learn about, participate in, and contribute to science in fun and engaging way.
“With this partnership, NSTA equips teachers and their students to contribute to real science research,” says Gerry Wheeler, Interim Executive Director. “Our members are looking for authentic science to help study and explore the world, but it can be difficult for them to know where to begin. Now we’ll be offering projects vetted, sorted and aggregated by SciStarter to NSTA’s vast network of K-12 educators and science supervisors, as well as to the thousands of online visitors to the NSTA website.”
“The NSTA has tremendous credibility in the science education community and every week reaches over 400,000 educators. The projects available through SciStarter offer opportunities to engage students in real formal and informal research projects to learn by doing. In turn, their participation will be invaluable to researchers,” adds Darlene Cavalier, Founder of SciStarter.
Researchers and team leaders interested in featuring science projects on the NSTA website are encouraged to submit them the SciStarter.com Project Finder for consideration by the SciStarter editors.
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About SciStarter.com
Darlene Cavalier founded both SciStarter and ScienceCheerleader.com, an organization that works through NFL and NBA cheerleaders-turned-scientists and engineers to advance science literacy and to involve people from all walks of life in science and science-related policy.
SciStarter aims to enable people to contribute to science through informal recreational activities and formal research efforts. The web site creates a shared space where scientists can work with people interested in learning about or joining their research projects.
About NSTA
The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), founded in 1944 and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, is the largest organization in the world committed to promoting excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all. NSTA’s current membership of 60,000 includes science teachers, science supervisors, administrators, scientists, business and industry representatives, and others involved in and committed to science education.
