The Office of Space Science will adhere to a fundamental set of operating principles intended to ensure that our education and outreach programs will be of the highest quality and will make a substantive contribution to enhancing science, technology, and mathematics education and the public appreciation and understanding of science and technology. These operating principles will be the bedrock of our efforts, influencing every aspect of our implementation of this plan. Our education and outreach activities will:
o Be coordinated with NASA's overall effort to support the national education agenda and to meeting national goals for education;
o Be compatible and coordinated with current national and state efforts towards systemic reform and the establishment of national standards and benchmarks;
o Emphasize, wherever possible, active, experiential involvement in NASA research programs and missions for both teachers and students;
o Use outside advice from the scientific, educational, and minority communities in the planning, development, implementation, and assessment of all our education and outreach activities;
o Tie into existing programs for women and minorities and, in doing so, contribute to the education and training of groups currently underrepresented in technical disciplines;
o Conduct regular tests and assessments of impact and effectiveness;
o Make educational materials and the results of our education and public outreach programs as widely available as possible using both existing dissemination mechanisms and new information technologies;
o Maintain a focus on excellence as the standard for performance in all education and public outreach activities that are undertaken.