NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Image to left: OfficeMax and NASA are partnering to provide new ways to use online education resources. Credit: OfficeMax

Teachers have always played an important role in the development of the nation's workforce. Today's astronauts, scientists, researchers and engineers were once students; and the classrooms of today hold the explorers of tomorrow. To support the teachers that make its missions possible, NASA creates a wide variety of materials to bring the excitement of exploration into the classroom.

NASA also strives to make those materials as accessible as possible for educators to use. Education resources can be picked up from NASA Educator Resource Centers, ordered through the mail or downloaded off the Internet and printed. But with space-age technology, it seems like there should be a better way. Well, now there is.

Through a new partnership between NASA and OfficeMax®, Inc., teachers now have another option for obtaining the agency's educational materials. Educators can now order resources that are available on the NASA Web site for pickup at their area OfficeMax Print and Document Services (located in almost all of OfficeMax's nearly 1,000 stores nationwide) at a reduced rate.

"NASA is always looking for new and innovative ways to provide information to the public," said Dr. Shelley Canright, NASA's Program Executive of the Education Technology and Products Office. "This partnership will especially enhance the process of getting NASA content directly into the hands of our nation's educators."

Educators who search through NASA's selection of free educational materials on the NASA homepage have been able to print those materials on their home or school computer, and will still be able to do so. Sometimes, however, a document may be too large for convenient printing or a teacher may need numerous copies of it, or a teacher may not have time to download a large file. Now, there is another alternative for quick and easy printing -- simply click the new OfficeMax icon on NASA's Web site to have documents professionally printed, copied and collated at the nearest OfficeMax store. Then, the documents can either be picked up the next day, or shipped via mail. OfficeMax is offering a savings of 50 percent on all material printed through the partnership.

"OfficeMax is proud to partner with NASA to help bring space curriculum to the classroom so quickly and easily, and to help teachers focus their time and energy on what they do best -- teaching our nation's children," said Sam Duncan, president and CEO of OfficeMax. "This partnership will save teachers a great deal of time by letting OfficeMax do the downloading, printing and color copying for them."

With NASA, OfficeMax and educators all working together, the future is just a click away.


David Hitt/NASA Educational Technology Services