[This is one of a series of blog posts about our six-year involvement leading the NASA Heliophysics Science Education and Public Outreach Forum. ]

For the past six years, I have been a part of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Education and Public Outreach (EPO) Forums. These forums were created to support NASA mission education teams in producing effective and efficient programs and materials for their audiences. In order to help NASA’s SMD EPO professionals develop the most effective programs possible, the Informal Education Working Group, which I chair, convened a literature review to gather the best practices from research, and to point our community members to professional organizations and resources that can guide their development of programs and activities for informal audiences.  We also conducted a national survey of informal educators to determine their needs for professional development sessions and materials.