Learning progressions provide a sequence, or progression, of concepts from naive to sophisticated. Astrobiology educators and scientists have identified the need to develop learning progressions for core, interdisciplinary concepts in astrobiology to support both educators of K-12 students to bring astrobiology concepts into their classrooms, and scientists to communicate with a range of audiences. The Astrobiology Learning Progressions resource organizes core concepts around the essential questions of astrobiology, and includes connections to the Next Generation Science Standards, progressed storylines, and concept boundaries for four levels: primary or adult naïve learners, elementary or emerging adult learners, middle school or building learner, and high school or sophisticated learner. The resource also links lesson plans and other learning materials to each core concept.

Measuring the effects of education and communication space science activities is a challenge due to different audiences, formats, dosage, and objectives. What claims can be made about the effect of a collection of different activities? What methods and measures can evaluators provide to activity managers to collect data that can be aggregated across activities? A summative evaluation approach was devised based on the National Science Foundation Framework impact categories of behavior, attitudes, skills, interest/engagement, and knowledge (BASIK), “Identification of these categories was based on analysis of project impacts from a comprehensive review carried out on a representative sample of Informal Science Education proposals, final reports, and summative evaluations” ((Friedman, 2008, p. 11). Measurable objectives were developed for each of the 53 activities offered by the 21 institutions with specific identification of the intended impact categories. Methods and measures were then complied to evaluate the effect of those activities on their audiences’ behaviors, attitudes, skills, interest and/or knowledge. For the knowledge impact, the space science concepts were identified for each activity from the Science Literacy Strandmaps (http://nasawavelength.org/strandmaps). This provided a portfolio overview by concept and level, as well as concept. Methods and measures were identified by impact category to provide data across activity on effects. Results from evaluations of projects are reported in an online portfolio by institutions and summarized across projects for annual reporting.