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Graduate students provide enormous value for their cost in funding. I’d like to better understand how k-12 students contribute here. Those students make up 88.7k of the reduction. How much do these students contribute and at what cost?

I’m in no way against inspiring the next generation. My question is aimed at correctly interpreting this table. The NSF is a worthwhile expense, but let’s understand the data we have.

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fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I don’t even know where to start here. The report is literally linked.

PreK-12 Teachers include teachers at elementary, middle, and secondary schools. These individuals actively participate in intensive professional development experiences in the sciences and mathematics.

PreK-12 Students are those attending elementary, middle, and secondary schools. They are supported through program components that directly engage students in science and mathematics experiences.

This is the foundation building of a national science program and every dollar you spend on this comes back tenfold over time. This is also class warfare, further defending education for the marginalised populations. This also fucks climate education and so, so, so many other things. The value of public outreach, especially for the youth is not only a well studied topic, but also inherently an issue of national security.

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- BlazeDaley@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  I’m not disagreeing. The report isn’t clear. This is written by fuck wits that are asking Congress for a budget cut.
  
  NSF programs indirectly impact millions of people, reaching PreK-12 students and teachers, the general public, and researchers
  
  The actual impact to the pipeline may be far larger.
  
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- Kornblumenratte@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  defending education or defunding it?
  
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reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
The chart is on a page discussing this:

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My workplace is NSF funded and supports a number of activities designed to increase interest in the discipline among young kids or improve teaching techniques for k-12 teachers. Similarly, we run an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) program to give undergraduate students exposure to hands on research (and hopefully encourage them to stay in the discipline for graduate school).

A majority of our funding still goes to PhDs doing fundamental research, but the pipeline that feeds academic research begins with children, and research funding priorities aren’t blind to that.

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