NASA SEMAA Academy

The NASA SEMAA Project is the newly designed K-12 academy model. An academy is an institution for the advancement of science. It is seen as a leader in its field of scholarship (science, technology, engineering,and mathematics). It is often permitted to dictate standards, prescribe methods, and critique new ideas.

SEMAA's infrastructure is based on a career-based aerospace science themes emphasizing a unifying idea or dominant thought.Its phase one schools are highly specialized, with a disciplinary focus (on STEM disciplines and careers).In general theme academies have a small student enrollment approximately 100-200 students and theme schools have 400-500 students.The small number of students share their core teachers and this structure lends itself to address academic, personal, and social development of the students (or teacher advisors). An interdisciplinary approach to instruction is adopted by all core teachers and the academy teacher. Core teachers utilize cross-curricula instructional strategies related to aerospace science topics. Students participate all year in the program

Teachers build their capacity because of the professional learning community formed to support the common theme, (structured collaborative planning, frequent collegial interactions, peer observations, and professional development received together) and address the individual student needs. Hands-on instruction, inquiry based K-12 curricula is designed by NASA to demonstrate a progression of education experiences. The teacher practices encompass the research and technology of each of NASA's four Mission Directorates: Aeronautics Research, Exploration Systems, Science Mission,and Space Operations.

NASA SEMAA provide regular program graduates 441 hours of advanced studies in STEM prior to enrollment in a post-secondary education. However, the academy's in-school models (theme school and academy models) provide substantially more contact hours (1620 hrs on the conservative end) and demonstrate a progression of educational opportunities.