NASA has selected nine informal education organizations across seven states to receive grants with a total worth of $10 million in an effort to inspire the next generation of scientists, innovators and explorers.

The nine organizations were chosen out of 73 applications for NASA’s Competitive Program for Science Museums, Planetariums and NASA Visitor Centers Plus Other Opportunities for their proposed projects ranging from botanical experiments with a focus on food growth in space, hands-on aviation exhibits, technology challenges with caves as stand-ins for other planets and a traveling exhibit on Earth’s extreme environments, NASA said Friday.

The selected institutions will work with other organizations, including museums, K-12 and higher education institutions and NASA’s Museum Alliance to create the exhibits with the goal to increase science literacy and inspire youths to take up a career within the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

NASA added that the projects are each valued between $420,000 to $1.25 million.

“NASA’s investment in education is directly linked to inspiring the next generation of explorers and innovators,” said Donald James, NASA’s office of education associate administrator.

Hands-on interactive educational activities help to engage students, educators and families, as well as increase the general public interest in science and technology, he said.

The winners of the grant are as follows:

• DNC Parks & Resorts at KSC, Inc.
• Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens
• Orlando Science Center
• Museum of Aviation
• Exploration Place
• Museum of Science
• The Sciencenter
• Nurture Nature Center
• Wex Foundation

A new Office of the Director of National Intelligence report has found a 5.9 percent decline in the number of federal government employees and contractors who were eligible for a security clearance in fiscal year 2015.

ODNI said in the report that there were 4,249,053 security clearance-eligible individuals in October 2015, compared with 4,514,576 in October 2014.

According to the report, federal agencies saw a 2.1 percent drop in the number of individuals who were eligible to hold a security clearance as well as gain access to classified information between October 2014 and October 2015.

The agency also found that the number of people who were entitled to a security clearance but were not allowed to access confidential data decreased by 203,449 from FY 2014 to FY 2015, showing a 12.8 percent decline.

The document also noted that such reductions in clearance eligibility were associated with the Defense Department’s efforts to implement several data quality initiatives.

ODNI prepared the 2015 Report on Security Clearance Determinations in compliance with the FY 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act.

The special security directorate under ODNI’s national counterintelligence and security center collected and processed data from DoD’s Joint Personnel Adjudication System, Office of Personnel Management’s Central Verification System and ODNI’s Scattered Castles repository in order to determine the security volume levels for government employees and contractors.

The Senate Commerce Committee has approved 10 bills as well as the nominations of Peggy Gustafson as the Commerce Department‘s Inspector general and the reappointment of Federal Maritime Commissioner Michael Khouri.

The committee said Wednesday it advanced the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act that works to maximize science research through new agency oversight and research dissemination strategies as well as a reform on federal science agencies to help taxpayer-funded research.

Bills approved by voice vote included:

• The American Innovation and Competitiveness Act
• Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act of 2015
• Securing Access to Networks in Disasters Act of 2016
• Deadline for Compliance with Alternative Safety Compliance Program
• American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act
• Marine Mammal Research and Response Act of 2016
• The Outdoor Recreation Jobs and Economic Impact Act of 2015
• Access for Sportfishing Act of 2016
• A bill to reauthorize and amend the Marine Debris Act to promote international action to reduce marine debris and for other purposes
• A bill to amend title 46 of the United States Code to exempt old vessels from certain requirements if improvements made

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has warned the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation‘s financial information and systems are at risk due to security concerns within the FDIC’s information security systems.

GAO said Thursday that the study conducted on FDIC showed the agency had vulnerabilities on the third-party softwares that supported its financial processing and lacked a process to rectify user access rights to its financial processing systems.

The agency recommended the FDIC’s chief information officer implement access control procedures that require the authorization of access rights modifications to be documented and a policy that will work to identify monitoring changes to critical files to be included during the audit.

FDIC has concurred with GAO’s recommendations to apply the new recommendations.