Educating the Next Generation

Abstract

Many government agencies have education programs that are aligned to their core missions. With respect to scientific stratospheric balloons, NASA and NSF have programs to sponsor science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education that specifically relates to balloons, because these play a major role in education. Over the years, experiments flown on scientific balloons have helped develop future scientists. It is feasible for undergraduate and graduate students to design and conduct a balloon-based scientific study within the time it takes them to achieve a two to five year graduate degree program. University professors are developing many of the current scientific balloon payloads with team members from the graduate and undergraduate student body. In effect, these agencies are the funding sources for those programs. It then becomes the responsibility of the participating schools and universities to compete for those funds to support their particular areas of interest and programs.