Sea, Air and Land Challenge

The Pennsylvania State University through its Applied Research Lab is proposing a three year effort to mature and transition the Sea, Air and Land Challenge. The mission of this high school science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) initiative is to inspire more studentsto pursue STEM education and careers, with the emphasis on those supporting our military and Department of Defense.Under the current four year effort, funded by the Office of Naval Research, the Sea, Air and Land (SeAL) Challenge has been designed, optimized and deployed to five regions in Pennsylvania and Indiana influencing over one thousand students from PA, IN, OH, and NY.The goals of the Challenge are to give students the opportunity to tackle a difficult engineering project while still in high school, to provide students with an awareness of the tremendous technical careers available in the Navy, Marines and Department of Defense as a civilian or in the military, and to help educators and administrators implement a successful STEM program into their schools given time, budget and resource constraints. The competition has been highlypopular with both students and faculty and the nationally available format does not require further refinement. In order to impact more students, the goals of this proposal are to mature the SeAL Challenges in the current regions, identify and start new regions to reach a critical threshold, streamline the central resource role within the program and transition this role to sustainable funding. By theconclusion of the proposal period, we will have reached over 5000 students, and will continue to grow. Once achieved, these goals give each regional Challenge, whether new or old, the tools necessary to operate independently with minimal central support into the foreseeable future.