Experiences
Photos of 2012 STAR Fellows:
STAR fellow Kaitlyn Fietchner presents her research on the Fiber Optic Strain Sensing System (FOSS):
In 2010, STAR fellow Kaitlyn Fietchner spent her summer at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center analyzing the fourier transforms for Dryden's Fiber Optic Strain Sensing System. Her research allowed Dryden to consider the benefits and drawbacks for each algorithm studied for use in the FOSS system, allowing reserachers to identify the most accurate and efficient way to implement their technology. Watch the video below to learn more:
The Top 10 Reasons to Spend Your Summer as a STAR Fellow:
You may be perusing this site and wondering, why should I participate in STAR and what makes it so special? Well, rather than list out all of the favorable reasons to spend your summer as a STAR fellow and what this opportunity can do for your career in teaching, we have put together a top 10 list to summarize the highlights.
10. Do cutting edge research at a federal laboratory or research center
9. Get paid $500/week with the possibility of returning in subsequent summers
8. Build your identity as a teacher/researcher
7. Get to know other teacher-scientists and participate in a larger community of science and mathematics teachers
6. Build your resume and get a head start on your teaching career
5. Become part of the larger scientific community and develop relationships with research scientists at federal laboratories and research centers to help in your career development and teaching activities
4. Learn more about what it means to be a 6-12th grade science or mathematics teacher
3. Become able to connect the doing of science and mathematics to the teaching of science and mathematics
2. Meet other like-minded individuals
And the number one reason to participate in STAR:
1. It will change your life!
STAR in the News
Several SSCP Students are STARs! *Science Teacher As Researcher
Science Teacher As Researcher is a program which places pre-service and novice teachers into science research labs for the summer. The paid research experience is done in national labs. Summer 2012 saw Ralph Alvarez, Carey Baxter, Robin Young and Aiyana Emigh doing research in a variety of fields. A few of them shared details about their projects. Read More...
2012 CAEE Scholarship
Michelle Malme and Sam Koshy (STAR Alum) are recipients of the 2012 CAEE Scholarship for Prospective Educators. Judi Walker, Director of CSULB Educational Career Placement Center, presented them with their checks during student teaching seminar. Michelle and Sam completed their student teaching during spring 2012. Read more...
Educating Future Teachers
Arturo Avila is a first-generation college grad with a degree in civil engineering. Kyla BradyLong earned her bachelor’s in chemistry. Although from very different backgrounds, both share the love of science. So much, in fact, they have both decided to become science teachers. Thanks to initiatives launched by Chancellor Reed, more of California’s brightest scientists like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo teacher credential students Avila and BradyLong are pursuing careers in teaching. California is projected to need upwards of 33,000 new science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers in the next ten years. The demand for credentialed teachers in these fields is significantly higher than the supply of fully qualified candidates. Reed’s emphasis on improving teacher education led to a systemwide Math and Science Teacher Initiative, and met his goal of doubling the annual production of math and science teachers. A high school science teacher inspired Kyla BradyLong to pursue science, but the “Learn by Doing” lab at Cal Poly is what inspired her to teach it.While she is pursuing a teaching credential, she is also spending time in the lab with professors and grad students at UC Davis' Center for Biophotonics Science & Technology. She is placed there as part of her internship with the STAR program and says it’s an innovative setting to examine best practices for teaching STEM. Read more....
JPL Teacher Interns Discover Teaching Careers
August 2011 (NASA JPL): Out of the many student programs and internships offered at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, only one focuses entirely on future math and science teachers, the individuals directly responsible for inspiring the next generations of scientists and engineers. The Science Teacher and Researcher (STAR) program provides aspiring science and math teachers with paid summer internships in national, independent and university laboratories, allowing participants to pursue a prestigious dual “teacher-researcher” career path.
JPL has hosted 28 interns during its three years of participation in the program, which is offered by the California State University system in partnership with government agencies that include the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and NASA, as well as private research organizations. Out of the 12 STAR undergraduate and graduate school interns participating in the program at JPL this summer, five have been offered teaching positions for the fall. The seven other interns are continuing their education. Read more:
Science and the CSU: STAR photos surface, show budding teachers at major research outposts
February 11, 2011 (CSU): Kaitlyn Fiechtner and Helida Haro embarked on a STAR trek last summer, going where no pre-service teachers had gone before: NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Photos newly provided to Science & the CSU offer some clues to their adventures – and to others who worked in other pioneering facilities as participants in STAR – the California State University’s pioneering STEM Teacher and Researcher program. After orienting them, STAR dispatches its fellows for summer sojourns to national laboratories and other research centers to conduct research with the labs’ engineers and scientists. Read more....
California State University's STAR Guides Toward Science Teaching: Program places students as fellows in research rolves at national labs and NASA centers
February 17, 2011 (CSU): California State University students Kaitlyn Fiechtner and Helida Haro found themselves at an unusual place for pre-service teachers last summer – NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base through the university's Science Teacher and Researcher (STAR) program. Fiechtner, an undergraduate in mathematics at Fresno State, analyzed NASA’s FOSS – or Fiber-Optic Strain-Sensing system. Haro, who earned a teaching credential at CSU Bakersfield and a master’s degree in applied mathematics at Cal State Northridge, examined “moments of inertia” to determine an aircraft’s distribution of mass, and thereby refine efforts to determine its weight. CSU's pioneering STAR program selects pre-service teachers (upper-division science, math and engineering majors and teaching credential students) as fellows. After orienting them, STAR dispatches the fellows for nine- to 10-week summer sojourns to national laboratories and other research centers to investigate technical questions along challenging lines of research while working with the labs’ engineers and scientists. Read more....
Science Teachers are 'STAR' Interns at JPL
September 8, 2010 (by Susan Gendreau): This summer NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory welcomed nine aspiring science teachers as interns, thanks to the Science Teacher and Researcher program (STAR). Most science teachers have never been researchers. The STAR program exists to help new teachers connect the "teaching of science" with the "doing of science." This is accomplished by providing research opportunities at world-class laboratories around the United States. STAR is a California State University program coordinated by the Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education (CESaME) at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. At JPL, the interns' projects were as varied as their backgrounds. Kristina Goltz has a degree in chemistry and a Master of Science in forensic science. "The students love that I have a Masters in forensic science," chuckled Goltz. She spent the summer as an astrobiologist, studying how deep into a rock ultraviolet light can penetrate. Her research will help determine how deep under the surface potential Martian life might have to be to escape surface radiation on Mars. "I didn't know research was so creative and that researchers encourage [initiative]. Once I went down to Caltech for a routine sample pickup and wound up getting them to loan us a rock saw," she laughed. "My mentor was really pleased." Read more....
Photos
Coming soon!
Quotes
Thank you so much! One of the best experiences of my life! - 2010 STAR Fellow