A unique two-week program, under way at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, is providing specialized training in mathematics and science for California State University, Fresno students eying careers in teaching at schools with a high percentage of minority students.
The Pre-Service Teacher Institute is funded by NASA Ames' Education Office at Moffett Field through a grant to the Teaching Fellows Program at Fresno State and Integrated Space Technologies (IST), Inc. of Huntsville, Alabama. The two-week workshop is designed to increase knowledge, skills and competence in teaching mathematics and science using technology.
The future teachers from Fresno State will be exposed to problem-based learning, mathematics and science enrichment activities at the workshop, which is one of eight such institutes funded by NASA at its centers across the nation and the first one at its California center.The NorCal Rover team took part in a two hour session with the teachers to present the rover project and it's science and engineering objectives at Mars analog environments on Earth. The latter part of the session was a hands on demonstration of the rover and it's features by Senseta and NorCal staff.
