GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Barbara Koscak and Mike O’Toole of the Department of Defense STARBASE program met with both Goodfellow and San Angelo civic leadership to discuss STARBASE opening a campus on base, June 27.
The program focuses on elementary students primarily in the fifth grade. The goal being to motivate them to explore Science, Technology, Engineering and Math fields as they continue their education.
“Everything is three hours away from here,” said Dr. Carol Ann Bonds, San Angelo Independent School District, retired. “Children here need something like this to make them aware of opportunities. Some of them will never know otherwise.”
The representatives came to survey and tour the base to see if it’d benefit from having the program and if it had to community to support it.
“We were caught off guard,” said O’Toole. “Even the county judge was at the table. I did not expect that.”
The program engages students through the inquiry-based curriculum with its hands-on experiential activities. The course work ranges from study of Newton's Laws to Bernoulli's principle; exploring nanotechnology, navigation and mapping. They also learn to apply their knowledge through use of computers to design space stations, drive all-terrain vehicles and submersibles. Math is central throughout the curriculum and students use metric measurement, estimation, calculation geometry and data analysis to solve questions. Teamwork is integral as they work together to explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate concepts.
Since the academies are located in different branches of the military this experience is highly varied. Students may discuss how chemical fires are extinguished, learn how injured are transported, explore the cockpit of an F-18 or the interior of a submarine.
The program first originated in Detroit, Michigan as Project STARS in 1991. The curriculum, designed by Barbara Koscak and Rick Simms, focused on exposing at-risk youth, (4-6 grade) to innovative hands-on activities in science, technology and mathematics based on the physics of flight. Under the guidance of Brig. Gen. David Arendts, 127th wing commander at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, students were invited to Selfridge to participate and witness the application of scientific concepts in a “real world” setting.
In FY 1993, the U.S. Congress appropriated funds for the program in seven states. There are locations spread across the United States and its territories. To accommodate the growing demand for additional STEM programs, a structured after school mentoring program, STARBASE 2.0, for middle school students was piloted in 2010 at five locations. The program’s success relies on collaboration between the sponsoring military unit and STARBASE Academy, the school district, and local communities. The goal is for each STARBASE Academy to sponsor a 2.0 program.
Goodfellow is set to host the program come September.