Journey through the Universe is a program sponsored by the Carl Sagan Center for Earth and Space Science Education to help communities integrate space science into the school curriculum by leveraging the strengths and capabilities of a particular community and providing resources that will otherwise be unavailable. The Hilo/Waiakea/Laupahoehoe School Complex is currently one of ten sites in the United States receiving support from the Sagan Center.

The Sagan Center provides programming for students and families, K-12 curriculum support materials, K-12 educator training, and ongoing support in both content and pedagogical approaches in the classroom.

The local Journey Team integrates the resources from the Sagan Center into existing science, mathematics, and technology education programming in both formal and informal science education venues. This effort centers upon Journey Week, which has three components:

Family Science Nights Public events that combine a presentation by a scientist and displays and hands on activities sponsored by the Journey Team and local organizations.

Classroom Visits Visiting scientists from the Sagan Center and local scientists spend a week visiting school classrooms.

Teacher Training Visiting scientists train teachers on how to incorporate material produced by the National Center into their curriculum.

The partnerships that form during Journey Week are meant to sustain long term community support and involvement in science education, even after Sagan Center resources become unavailable.

Information on the local Journey Team is available at:
http://www.gemini.edu/journey

Information on the Universities Space Research Association, the umbrella organization for the Carl Sagan Center for Earth and Space Science Education is available at:
http://www.usra.edu

Although the Journey through the Universe is a well established program, the Sagan Center is new, and a web site is currently under construction. The most succinct summary of the Sagan Center is an abstract submitted for the September 2005 American Astronomical Society Division of Planetary Sciences meeting when its name was the National Center for Space, Earth, and Flight Sciences Education:

USRA's NCSEFSE: a new National Center for Space, Earth, and Flight

T. A. Livengood, J. Goldstein, H. Vanhala, J. Hamel, E. A. Miller, K. Pulkkinen, S. Richards (USRA NCSEFSE)

A new National Center for Space, Earth, and Flight Sciences Education (NCSEFSE) has been created in the Washington, DC metropolitan area under the auspices of the Universities Space Research Association. The NCSEFSE provides education and public outreach services in the areas of NASA's research foci in programs of both national and local scope. Present NCSEFSE programs include: Journey through the Universe, which unites formal and informal education within communities and connects a nationally-distributed network of communities from Hilo, HI to Washington, DC with volunteer Visiting Researchers and thematic education modules; the Voyage Scale Model Solar System exhibition on the National Mall, a showcase for planetary science placed directly outside the National Air and Space Museum; educational module development and distribution for the MESSENGER mission to Mercury through a national cadre of MESSENGER Educator Fellows; Teachable Moments in the News, which capitalizes on current events in space, Earth, and flight sciences to teach the science that underlies students' natural interests; the Voyages Across the Universe Speakers' Bureau; and Family Science Night at the National Air and Space Museum, which reaches audiences of 2000--3000 each year, drawn from the Washington metropolitan area. Staff scientists of NCSEFSE maintain active research programs, presently in the areas of planetary atmospheric composition, structure, and dynamics, and in solar system formation. NCSEFSE scientists thus are able to act as authentic representatives of frontier scientific research, and ensure accuracy, relevance, and significance in educational products. NCSEFSE instructional designers and educators ensure pedagogic clarity and effectiveness, through a commitment to quantitative assessment.