Background

NEO-Sphere is designed to provide both mechanism and means to help education and outreach professionals more effectively reach larger and more broad and diverse audiences. Almost 180,000 people are directly involved in NSF programs and activities, which collectively impact many millions of people, including K-12 students and teachers, the general public, and researchers.

Activities range from workshops to informal science activities such as museums, television, videos, and journals; outreach efforts; and dissemination of improved curriculum and teaching methods (NSF, 2006). Principal Investigators (PIs) and education and outreach personnel at NSF’s approximately 213 Centers and NSF program directors (and others) may use the site’s resources and collaborative software to improve communication among Centers and across disciplines.

Immediate benefits to users will be the ability to gain access to methods and model (best) practices; to minimize duplication of effort; to learn how to create and sustain internal and external partnerships; to extend Centers’ reach to more broad and diverse audiences; and to increase Centers’ ability to attract supplemental funding for their programs and projects.