Featured Grants
USDA HSI Education Grant
EverGreen: A Cross-Disciplinary Research and Education Program for Hispanic Students on Soil-Free Farming Using Renewable Energy and Harvested Water
PI: Bahram Asiabanpour Co-PIs: Ken Mix, Nicole Wagner
Purpose: EverGreen is a project that integrates soil-free hydroponic farming, water saving, renewable energy, automation, and smart technology systems to provide a sustainable off-grid indoor farm, which, by utilizing financial modeling, marketing, and optimization techniques, is becoming financially viable and sustainable. EverGreen addresses water efficiency issues in agriculture through methods such as rainwater harvesting and atmospheric water generation, introduces sustainable agricultural methods in a changing climate (e.g., extreme weather and drought), and provides food security through consistent quantity and quality of production. Additionally, this project will train a diverse future workforce of food system innovators that have the educational and applied research skills needed to address the nation's priority areas.
NASA MUREP-Educator Professional Development Grant
NASA STEM Educator Professional Development Collaborative
PI: Araceli Ortiz Co-PI: Leslie Huling
Partner: Penn State
Purpose: To develop and implement a transformative, diversity-focused educator professional development system with a national scope led by a Hispanic-Serving Institution and a network of education and technology experts from other Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Tribal Colleges. Constellation will impact over 400,000 educators (higher education faculty, pre-service teachers, K-12 teachers, and informal educators) during the first five years of operation. The Constellation model is based on five innovative approaches that also serve as foundational principles: 1) attention to the educator across the professional continuum, 2) respect for the culture and language of the learner, 3) openness to sharing learning and harnessing the power of scholar/expert partnerships, 4) boldness to leverage the potential of massive online learning and badging systems and 5) commitment to innovate a national impact evaluation model that gets to the heart of professional learning and behavior change.