Summary

The world is facing many big challenges like climate change, water insecurity, and diseases; addressing these challenges in innovative ways requires interdisciplinary research using data from multiple sources. Many U.S. government agencies have substantial archives of high-quality, freely available data, but these archives can be difficult to navigate. Your challenge is to design a platform to explore open data that is available from NASA and other federal data repositories or to improve the functionality of an existing such platform, and then demonstrate how your solution can be applied to an area of study that has significant societal benefits (e.g., environmental justice, ecological conservation, or human health).

Background

The collective challenges we face as a civilization demand that we change science now, so that we have the successful, efficient, inclusive scientific ecosystem we need to improve our ability to respond to challenges. That means we need more open, cross-disciplinary, collaborative science.

Open science is defined as the principle and practice of making research products and processes available to all, while respecting diverse cultures, maintaining security and privacy, and fostering collaborations, reproducibility, and equity. In January 2023, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) designated 2023 as a Year of Open Science. Numerous actions across the Federal Government throughout 2023 will advance national open science policy, provide access to the results of the nation’s taxpayer-supported research, accelerate discovery and innovation, promote public trust, and drive more equitable outcomes. A critical component of open science is open data. Numerous federal government agencies provide substantial archives of high-quality, freely available data, including:

NASA
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
and more…

This data can be integrated to conduct cross-disciplinary research that will enable more innovative coherent solutions to many of the challenges mentioned above.

There are several existing platforms, such as data.gov or geoplatform.gov, that provide access to datasets published by agencies across the federal government. Many of these platforms provide lists of all published datasets or collate the data thematically. Can the functionality of these platforms be made more accessible and useful for interdisciplinary research with societal benefits? Or can a new open data platform be designed to enable improved cross-agency research?

Objectives

Your challenge is to:

design an open data platform that enables users to explore all available data across different federal data repositories including NASA and other agencies such as NOAA, USGS, NIH, USDA, EPA, etc.

or

improve the functionality of an existing platform (e.g., data.gov, geoplatform.gov) that provides access to datasets published by various federal agencies,

and demonstrate how your solution can be applied to an area of study that has significant societal benefits (for example, environmental justice, ecological conservation, or human health).

You can start by researching the existing data access platforms and familiarizing yourself with the plethora of data available through federal agencies. Think about a way to make that data more accessible. Will you create an intuitive user interface, improve the functionality of an existing platform, or design a new platform?

Potential Considerations

You may (but are not required to) consider the following:

Be creative! Your solution may include new and innovative technology that might not be commonly used.
Federal agency data repositories provide a wealth of data. Feel free to research, explore, and use data from these agencies (see the Resources for links to those repositories) to enable cross-disciplinary research.

For data and resources related to this challenge, refer to the Resources tab at the top of the page.

NASA Space Apps 2023

Mapping Data for Societal Benefit