Hard hit during the painful economic transition, our kids could hardly get on a bus to take a field trip anywhere. One of the things we tried to do during that time, many of us, in these areas, was to make sure here is this fantastic wealth of knowledge and all of these things happening, whether library of congress, smithsonian, et cetera, how we can have resources for the teachers to make that part of the curriculum. Kids are so used now to accessing everything electronically. As you mentioned about 3d printers, they really are amazing what they are doing in the schools. Could you talk a little about, that is part of your revitalizing education portion of your Strategic Plan and how you can help with education throughout the entire country here really making sure that kids have access to all of these fantastic avenues of knowledge. Certainly. The smithsonian at its core is an educational institution. We have these wonderful objects. We do tremendous research. But one of our main objectives is to get this information out as broadly and widely as possible. Weve had a long tradition of education being an important aspect of what we do as mentioned for 30 years through the smithsonian Science Education center, weve been providing Science Curriculum free of charge throughout the country tailored to local standards for teachers, for students, for School Districts. We feel its important to try and help address issues of s. T. E. M. Education and the like throughout the country. Where a couple come together are education and digitization. One of the kind of buzz phrases weve developed at the smithsonian, if you cant come to the smithsonian, we want to get the smithsonian to you. One of the strategies to do that is through digitization. All of these wonderful objects we have, were trying to digitize all of them, make them available to people across the country, in fact, across the world for students k through 12, higher education, lifelong learners, provide these objects so they can be studied and worked with in a classroom and not only in our spaces in washington d. C. Were working on 3d printing so that not only can you render 3d objects online but also transfer them to printers and have your students create their own models of the wright flyer or the Space Shuttle. Were, in fact, in the middle of digitizing Space Shuttle at this current time. So all of these activities and many, many more were focused on, again, to try to play Important Role in forwarding education across the country. Could you tell us a little bit, i guess the national zoo is really your biggest visitors. You have more visitors there than any other things but museums, air and space, i believe. That has the most amount of visitors. Air and smas and Natural History are neck and neck. Neck and neck, i understand that the outer envelope, if you will, of the air and space is in need of some serious structural repairs. Maybe you could tell us a bit how youre planning for that and what we need to be aware of here. Certainly. We have a longterm capital plan. 12 million square feet of space. Keeping those buildings vital and functional is an important priority for us. A renovation with Building Systems of air and space had long been on our plan. We envisioned it being next big priority following completion of natural museums of history and culture. As we begin process of assessing work we need to do and doing our feasibility study, we unfortunately uncovered the fact the outer envelope, the facade comprised of tennessee pink marble is actually thinner in size than it should have been. Unfortunately, after 40 years almost of wear and tear its starting to crack and bow. Weve now had three independent assessments by experts and they have all concluded that that stone needs to come down and be replaced. Its just too thin to be repaired. So all of that stone will need to be replaced. Thats in addition to other work we contemplated we would need to do anyway, upgrading air handling systems, completing repairs on the roof and the like. The building opened in july of 1976. It was built with a notion we would receive about 3 million visitors a year. We now receive about six or seven, so its received a lot more wear and tear than was envisioned. Obviously our knowledge about what it takes to maintain precious and delicate objects like this has advanced as well. Unfortunately were looking at a price tag of probably 500 million to fully renovate that building. Its a process were currently in the process of design on. We wehope to begin construction on the renovation some time in 2017. Our plan is to try during the course of that renovation to keep portions of the building open to the public. Again, since it was one of the most heavily visited museums in the world and one of our most heavily visited, we dont want to take all of those objects off line if we can possibly avoid that. Wow, that is a huge price tag. It is. Okay. Appreciate that. Chair recognizes mr. Vargas for questions. Thank you very much, madam chair. I cant help but get excited when you talked about your familys involvement with the smithsonian. Id be remiss it say in san diego we have affiliated museums. We also have San Diego Air and Aerospace Museum affiliated with smithsonian. Its the same thing there. You get a lot of the pilots, not only hang around but also teach the kids how to work on planes and how to repair them create them, and its really exciting. Ive had a chance to go there a few times. They do a great deal. I would be remiss if i didnt thank smithsonian. I think theres four or five institutions in balboa park that are affiliated with smithsonian. Talking about if citizens cant come to smithsonian, smithsonian will come to them. I know youve done that with affiliated and we appreciate it in san diego and certainly throughout the country. I do want to ask a couple of questions. Does smith have position on museum with American Latino Museum . If congress were to authorize it, could smithsonian absorb the work involved with the project . Should congress authorize and approve funding for a smithsonian American Latino Museum, we would be honored to add such a museum to our portfolio and we would do everything in our power to do an exceptional job in delivering the museum to the American People. Thank you. Second question. What effect has sequestration had on smithsonians operations over the last few years, if any . The budgetary uncertainty around the federal budget has certainly forced us to do a lot of scenario planning and rethinking about priorities and potential programs. We were able to weather we were able to weather sequestration that was implemented a couple years ago because we had done a lot of preparation, but we knew if there were longterm and additional reductions made, we would have to fundamentally rethink some of the basic operating premises of the institution. As you might imagine given some of the facilities challenges like the one just mentioned previously, we are obviously keenly aware of how important continued strong federal funding will be for us to not only deal with some of those more acute problems but allow us to continue to push forward in terms of digitization, care initiatives, expansion of Care Education programs and the like. So at present we continue to develop a number of different strategies depending on the levels of funding. Weve also spent quite a bit of time and effort to ensure that our ability to raise nonfederal funds, private funds through philanthropy, sponsored project support and other means are as advanced and effective as possible. Thank you. By the way, a little pet peeve of mine, sequestration. I wasnt here when they voted on it. It, comes from the latin term, to set aside. Thats why you sequester a jury. Doesnt mean across the board cuts. A pet peeve of mine. I dont know why they use that term. Anyway, its a term they chose. Were all very excited, all of us about the opening of the africanamerican museum next year. Are there any special events around it the public should be aware of . Were in the midst of planning for grand opening of the museum next fall and so were at the early stages. We intend to begin preliminary events leading up to that. The museum itself is not waiting for the building to be finished. We just opened a new exhibit in American History to begin showing some of the collection thats been amassed over the course of the last several years called through the africanamerican lens. I would encourage everyone who has an opportunity to go and see it. So in expectation of the Museum Opening and not just generating excitement from the seemingly day to day changes that take place in construction, were trying to do programming and the like to get people excited and ready. My time is up. Thank you, madam chair, appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Harper from mississippi. Thank you for your service. I have to say last night everyone got together for congressional night and the International Portrait gallery, an incredible location, and very well done. Thanks to all involved in that. Theres always a concern on the upkeep of buildings and making sure we dont defer maintenance. That happens sometimes because somebody is not there. I know we have a new museum thats been talked about that will open next year. A very exciting time. There are others being discussed. Theres also a concern as we go forward and build new museums we have the ability to maintain them and do the upkeep and maintenance. So this is going to be a major lift. As far as families, air and space museum is one that everyone likes to go to. Its very special. The planes are there from my Congressional District from meridian mississippi, the airplane calledole miss, for which they set the record for longest time in the air, 27 days, back in 1935. And their partner, mechanic, inventor friend invented the shutoff valve so you could safely transfer the fuel, which even today with just some minor modifications is still whats used today. You have this single engine plane they stayed in for 27 days with this catwalk built around it because they had to climb out and service the engine during flight. During construction were confident that will be fully displayed. Anyway, thats another deal there. Its true. Every exhibit has a great story. And so were very thankful for that and those opportunities there. How do you foresee Going Forward . I know that chairman miller discussed this. Youre planning on keeping this open at least in part during those construction years. How many years will that air and space renovation take place . We are still in the midst of Detailed Design and planning. Right now our best estimate is it will take about four and a half years of renovation time. We will try to do it in phases through the building. Its a little complicated because all of the Building Systems are integrated, but thats part of the challenge of what were trying to study at this point. Again it is very important to try as much as possible to keep portions of that building open so that our visitors can continue to benefit from the tremendous artifacts. Other buildings are aging as well and will have those needs as well. Is there a plan for which well make sure we dont wind up with a big hit where maybe you see doing these along in stages where we dont wind up with 500 million one time or over a few years major renovation . Yes. There are a couple of examples where we had been doing that over the last several years. The Natural History museum, everyone knows the dinosaur hall is currently closed. Thats partially driven by the desire and need to renovate that portion of the building as well as do some needed maintenance on the artifacts. Weve taken the same approach at American History. So back in 2008, we reopened the center core of the building, now the starspangled banner hall. Were working on the west side of the building and are very excited about reopening the first floor of that renovated space in july. Weve taken the same approach at the national zoo. So to the extent in some of the larger, more complex buildings where taking on the entire building would be astronomical in terms of cost weve tried to parse them out. In some cases, like the air and space museum, because of the way the building was built, its not practical to close portions of it and work on it at various points in time. One of our Biggest Challenges is making sure that we continue to address the most pressing needs and try to use the combination of both maintenance as well as facilities Capital Funding to be as thoughtful as possible and keep our buildings open. My time is almost over. Let me ask you this, 138 million items, probably more, not everything we probably want to keep. Im a bit of a pack rat. I dont want to throw anything away. When youre deciding new items to go into the collection, if you could just quickly, is there a basic criteria you have or how thats decided on . Certainly. We look at the importance of that object to the collection and the particular discipline that it supports. We ensure we can safely and effectively keep it. We make sure we have the expertise to study and tell its stories. Not everything makes the cut. Not everything makes the cut. Thank you very much. Yield back. Mr. Davis. Thank you, chairman miller. I wish you well on your next endeavor going to work for the smithsonian, as you mentioned. Please, sir, check her references. Dont cut my mike. Thats just vargas. First off i want to say thank you, mr. Acting secretary. My twin boys, who are 14, going into the ninth grade were part of a Large High School group out last week and enjoyed some of your facilities. Some of the feedback was that obviously besides hanging out with me, going to the smithsonian was actually one of their favorite activities. Its something we see many folks and families go through every day here. What you do on a regular basis, i think this committee, hopefully today you understand we truly appreciate what you do and the many men and women who work at your facilities on a regular basis do to show what our nation is all about. Thank you for that. Education was take key point of your opening testimony. Notice you mentioned some of the stem programs that smithsonian works with School Districts throughout this nation especially k through 12 education. Can you actually go into further what you do with the smithsonian to ensure our students who may not be able to make it out here to washington, d. C. Or to other facility in the nation, how do they have access to your facilities and how do your s. T. E. M. Programs work, and also, how do teachers who may not be involved with them know how to contact you to get involved . We have tremendous Educational Resources at the smithsonian. Some attach to the specific museums, research centers. Some are coordinated in more central ways. One of our big initiatives across the board and, of course, in education is to take what we have and get it to folks regardless of where they are geographically throughout the country. So smithsonian Science Education center for 30 years has been putting together curriculum that is tied to state standards that teachers and School Districts can implement and use to teach to teach science to kids from k through 12. Its handson learning and it is supplemented by a number of lesson plans and activities that can be downloaded. All of that material is provided for free. We have a large Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service which takes smithsonian content throughout the country and so at many museums large and small across the country you can benefit from the same kind of content that you see in washington, d. C. At your local museum throughout the country. More and more, were trying to put a lot of our material online so that even if you are not using some of the more formal materials that we provide a teacher can download information, can use a variety of support material that we provide to integrate into their classroom. So we view education as central to our mission and as a way offen livening the objects and telling their zwroir and using them in a way to help inspire kids to learn. I appreciate what you do to make that happen. Again, for many students who dont get a chance to come out here and experience what we see and sometimes take for granted on a daily base. What we do as an institution to help encourage more activity and use of your programs . Well i think youre doing it. The more that we can engage people in our facilities in our programs, to understand the richness, the breadth and depth of what we do, i think together we can learn places where perhaps we arent filling a gap, where we could fill a gap. We recognize that we cant do everything. But we believe that we can have a Significant Impact on improving the delivery of Stem Education throughout the country, in telling history in teaching history, particularly about the history of the American Experience and the like. One last question do you have an idea if you can give me an estimated percentage of how many School Districts youre putting your Stem Education program into nationwide. I can give you a specific numbers as part of the final testimony. I dont have those numbers offhand. That would be great. We make them available to anyone who wants them and we actively engage with folks across the country. Thank you very much for your time. Madam chairman ill yield back to our star pitcher from the congressional baseball game could have time to ask questions. Thank you very much, mr. Walker, our star pitcher. Thank you mr. Chairman and mr. Catcher. Im fascinated by the smithsonian over the year. Something that predates our civil kwar by 15 years. I believe y