Slooh Launches New Grant to Make Space Exploration Accessible to 100,000 Students in Urban School Districts

As part of its ongoing mission to make space exploration accessible to all students, Slooh, the pioneer in offering live online telescope feeds of the universe and an NGSS-aligned curriculum to school communities worldwide, is launching the Slooh Space Aspiration Grant. This grant, which is valued at up to $500,000, will award five underserved, urban K-12 school districts—representing a total of up to 100,000 students—with district site licenses for the 2024-25 school year. This includes complete access to Slooh’s online telescopes, curriculum, and professional development offerings.

“There are many places where city lights drown out the ability to see the stars. Exploring the wonders of space is something that all students—regardless of where they are located—should be able to experience,” said Michael Paolucci, founder of Slooh. “The Slooh Space Aspiration Grant will provide underserved urban districts with the resources and support needed to engage students, as well as teachers and families, in space exploration while introducing them to the emerging career opportunities available as part of the new space economy.”

To apply for the Slooh Space Aspiration Grant, district superintendents, assistant superintendents, or chief academic officers must complete an application briefly detailing how the district community will benefit from access to Slooh this coming school year, as well as how it will be implemented across the curriculum. All interested applicants are also asked to share their intention for adopting Slooh across grade levels and in programs such as after-school and summer school.

Applications are due by August 9, 2024. Slooh will review applications and notify finalists with an intent to award no later than August 31, 2024. 

Within the context of its age- and grade-level appropriate curricula, students and teachers use Slooh to access an array of contextual educational modules to support learning. Accompanying NGSS-aligned learning activities called Quests challenge students to collect and analyze data from Slooh’s online telescopes to form their own conclusions, as well as enable them to explore space and learn important astronomical concepts during educator- and self-directed instruction. The Quests follow a learning progression through each age level to help students learn about astronomy and the worlds around them in a truly accessible, unique, innovative, and engaging way.

In addition to online telescope access and integrated curriculum-based lessons, educators have access to Slooh’s professional development to help them integrate the materials into their lessons. With no prerequisite knowledge required, this professional development helps build educators’ understanding of space and astronomy while helping them to immerse students in space discovery by accessing celestial phenomena. 

Along with this technology and professional development, all grantees will also be invited to participate in Slooh’s career discovery programs and have access to publishing tools to support content sharing across their communities.

To learn more about the Slooh Space Aspiration Grant and to apply today, visit https://www.slooh.org/.

About Slooh

Slooh brings the wonders of space exploration to the public, at school and at home. For almost 20 years, the company has provided the ability to view space phenomena, capture observational data, and engage in gamified learning through its patented user-controlled network of online telescopes and standards-aligned curriculum for upper elementary through post-secondary students worldwide. Slooh is funded in part by a National Science Foundation grant. To learn more about Slooh, visit https://www.slooh.com.