TERRA SCIENCE AND EDUCATION INC

improves the quality of life through the support of those who are engaged in education and innovation

Syracuse, NY   |  www.terraed.org

Mission

Terra Science and education is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life through the support of those who are engaged in education and innovation.

Ruling year info

2011

President

Fehmi Damkaci

Main address

835 West Genesee Street

Syracuse, NY 13204 USA

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EIN

27-3215060

NTEE code info

(Educational Services and Schools - Other) (B90)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

The lack of opportunities for K-12 students and educators to access for STEM-related activities or to build up capacity for performing such activities at schools, or connect or share their results with other students regionally, nationally, or globally.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Terra Northeast Regional Science and Engineering Fair

The Terra Northeast Regional Science and Engineering Fair, TNRSEF, is an Internationally affiliates science and engineering fair for students in grades 5-12 from Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and St. Lawrence Counties.

Population(s) Served

ISEF affiliated K-12 Science and Engineering Fair for Chemung, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Wayne and Yates Counties in New York State.

Population(s) Served

Terra provides capacity-building grants to K-12 programs and educational programs to support their needs to create and sustain STEM-related programs in their organizations. In addition, Terra also provides grants for schools to cover their material costs to organize a STEM fair in their schools which lead to apply for one of the Terra STEM fairs.

Population(s) Served

Online peer-reviewed research journal for STEM-related field for high school student researchers and their teachers. It is published quarterly. https://ijhighschoolresearch.org/

Population(s) Served

GENIUS Olympiad is an international high school project competition about environmental issues. It is founded and organized by the Terra Science and Education in 2011. GENIUS Olympiad host projects in five general disciplines (STEM, art, short film, creative writing, music, business) with an environmental focus. More than 1400 students from more than 80 countries and 45 states applied and presented their work in its annual event in New York, USA. www.geniusolympiad.org

Population(s) Served

It is a teacher development conference for urban teachers with a different topic offered in every fall. Topics may vary such as STEM education, ELL education, Technology Education, Classroom behavior, etc. Terra Science and Education is an official NYSED provider of CTLE credits for educators.

Population(s) Served

Terra is partnered with the Gerace Research Center
(GRC) in San Salvador, Bahamas to offer marine biology research opportunity for high school and college students and teachers. Terra will manage the program for GRC for all US high school students.

Population(s) Served

Terra provides free summer college readiness and SAT program for a month in partnership with other organizations in Syracuse.

Population(s) Served

Terra will provide a bridge program to match high school students around the world with high school students in US for a joint research project. Students will visit each other at their home institutions and will submit their work to GENIUS Olympiad, another Terra program.

Population(s) Served

Terra provides scholarships at elementary, middle, high school, and college students. The purpose of the scholarships is to push students to do their best in their educations. Elementary and middle school students may receive up to $75 if they perform at level 3/4 in NYS tests, and high school students may receive upto $400 if they achieve college readiness based on their regents exam and college students at four-year college who perform well.

Population(s) Served

Where we work

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Number of educators who have opportunities to attend programs offered by professional organizations

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

The number of educators who have opportunities is based on the number of participants we have had for our Conference, Bahamas Research, GENIUS Olympiad, Regional Fairs, and Grant programs.

Number of participants attending course/session/workshop

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

This number represents the participants of our Fellowship Workshop, College Guidance Summer Program, Terra Fairs workshop, and Terra Urban Education Conference.

Number of organizations applying for grants

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

Terra Grants Program

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Number of groups/individuals benefiting from tools/resources/education materials provided

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

This number encompasses the total reach for all our programming.

Number of public events held to further mission

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Number of unique website visitors

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Total number of unique visitors to Terra's program websites: terraed.org, geniusolympiad.org, ijhighschoolresearch.org, acasu.org, terrafairs.org

Number of website pageviews

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

This is the number of website visits in all our program websites, such as terraed.org, geniusolympiad.org, terrafairs.org, acasu.org

Number of academic scholarships awarded

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Increasing

Total dollar amount of scholarship awarded

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Input - describing resources we use

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Total number of grants awarded

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

Terra Grants Program

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Number of youth programs offered

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Number of participants engaged in programs

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

approximate number of participants in our major programs

Number of participants who would recommend program to others

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Context Notes

Based on satisfaction surveys in our select programs keep satisfaction around 94-95% in all programs.

Our Sustainable Development Goals

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

Terra provides several unique programs to address the issue of the lack of opportunities for K-12 students and teachers. With these programs, we aim to close the opportunity gap between students and educators who lack resources, means, and opportunities to expose their students for higher-order programs and global collaborations and networks in STEM-related activities to increase their engagement in such fields. We also provide opportunities in STEM and environmental education to promote project based educations for both environmental conciseness and STEM. We also aim to keep our management costs lower than 10-11% (compared to 15-18 national averages) for better utilizing our resources and provide more opportunities for those who are in need of in less or no cost.

Our strategies include;
a) providing regional, national, and international professional development and research opportunities for teachers to develop such skills and knowledge to engage their students in hands-on STEM education.
b) providing regional capacity-building grants for schools to create environments for educators to develop new opportunities for their students
c) providing regional, national, international STEM network opportunities for students to share their research with their peers
d) providing grants and scholarships for schools and students

We have three staff members and two program-specific consultants who are experienced to develop regional or international STEM programs. We work with several local and regional volunteers to get help for a portion of the work we do; especially local university faculty members, or STEM activists who are retired or work in STEM-related fields. In addition, we collaborate with several non-profit school districts, museums, and universities in offering our programs. The engagement of volunteers and local non-profit organizations also lowers the cost of our programs. We have a steady income level to offer existing programs and we have been working on grant writing to receive additional funding for new programs.

We have developed several (6 regional and 3 national/international) programs to accomplish our goals as described before. We kept our management costs below 9-10% and be able to offer more programs with the funding we have. We served ANNUALLY;
a) around 300 middle and high school students in the Central New York area through our regional STEM fairs,
b) around 150 teachers through our Urban Education conference
c) around 20 students through our College readiness and SAT prep program
d) around 3 teachers who developed STEM fairs in their school for the first time through our Teacher fellowship program
e) around 15-18 schools who received $3-5K to develop new STEM programs through our capacity-building programs
f) around 10 teachers 20 students who attend Bahamas research program who will lead their students in coming years,
g) around 90 students who achieved success at their NY state tests through our scholarship programs
h) around 20 students who received up to $4,000 college scholarship by attending a 4-year college and keeping a certain minimum GPA through our scholarship program.
i) around 1500 participants from more than 80 countries and 45 states through GENIUS Olympiad
i) around 30 students and teachers who published their research through our international journal of high school research.

We are working on networking with local school districts and museums to receive federal funding for several new programs to increase STEM engagement and professional development for teachers.

We would like to increase our donation and grant income to increase our program offerings and the number of students and teacher we serve.

Financials

TERRA SCIENCE AND EDUCATION INC
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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Connect with nonprofit leaders

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  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

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TERRA SCIENCE AND EDUCATION INC

Board of directors
as of 02/11/2022
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board chair

Dr. Fehmi Damkaci

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes
  • CEO oversight
    Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes
  • Ethics and transparency
    Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes
  • Board composition
    Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes
  • Board performance
    Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes