The National Science Foundation (NSF) Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide for the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) Program solicitation (NSF 09-529) has been revised. The revised changes include a new program opportunity that invites proposals for
projects that would provide leadership and contribute to transforming undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Geoscience faculty are encouraged to submit proposals to this program.

The most recent program solicitation (NSF 09-529) invites proposals for Central Resource Projects that provide leadership and implementation of activities that sustain a community of practice engaged in transforming undergraduate STEM education. CCLI Central Resource projects could:
1. Support activities intended to increase communication within the STEM education community and increase the impact of CCLI projects;
2. Provide leadership in the dissemination of STEM instructional materials and practices, as well as ways to integrate research experiences into the undergraduate curriculum;
3. Provide expertise about assessing student learning and findings on what is known about how students learn and what pedagogies work under what conditions; and / or
4. Provide for a series of meetings designed to increase cooperation and collaboration among large groups of PIs with similar interests.

One of the significant changes between the new solicitation and the one it replaces is that "types" have replaced "phases." The new solicitation allows proposals to be submitted as Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3 requests. These three types are independent and correspond to different levels of support and scale, scope, and stage of development. Type 1 projects typically are of smaller scale, scope, and stage than Types 2 and 3 and have budgets up to $200,000 ($250,000 for projects involving collaborations between four-year colleges and universities and two-year colleges), for 2 to 3 years. Type 2 projects have budgets up to $600,000 for 2 to 4 years, and Type 3 projects have budgets up to $5 million over
5 years.

The following should be considered when submitting a proposal:
- Determine how your ideas best match the solicitation;
- Articulate goals, objectives, and outcomes and explain how the proposed activities contribute to improving student learning;
- Build on the existing knowledge base; review the literature and demonstrate you are aware of what others have done and how your proposed effort is informed by previous work;
- Explore potential collaborations with industry, business, or other academic departments and institutions;
- Use data to document existing shortcomings in student learning;
- Describe your management plan (identify tasks, timeline, and roles and responsibilities for each member of your project team);
- Integrate project evaluation into your proposed project - identify an independent and experienced project evaluator to clarify the nature of your project, purpose of the evaluation, and what questions,
instruments, methods, and assessments will guide the evaluation;
- Identify strategies for dissemination, including workshops in association with professional conferences; and
- Provide letters of support, collaboration, etc. as evidence of prior planning.

Consider submitting proposals that take advantage of new research findings, technological opportunities made possible via the Internet, visualization software, or developing instruments and tools for
acquiring and analyzing various types of geoscientific data (one recent example is Lidar).

The CCLI program does not take letters of intent or preliminary proposals. The deadline for Types 2 and 3 full proposals and for CCLI Central Resource Project proposals is 13 January 2010. However, CCLI Central Resource Project proposals for small focused workshops may be submitted at any time after consulting with