The Mark Highlights March 2019

Since 2011, the SETI Institute has partnered with NASA and select school districts to give high school science teachers the opportunity to experience the Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors (AAA) program.

MUSD became a partner district with SETI and NASA in the fall of 2016. This fall will mark the fourth consecutive year MUSD has sent teachers to experience this intensive week-long immersion experience at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Hanger 103 in Palmdale, CA. This year, there are only 14 school districts in the country invited to participate.

In October 2016, Jeff Baldwin of LHS and Larry Grimes of SHS began the MUSD partnership with the program. In October 2017, Chris Courtney of SHS, Tim

Horning of MHS, Remberto Lopez and Juliet Mathews of EUHS, Todd Walker of LHS and District Science Coordinator Lisa Snyder flew with SOFIA. In October 2018, James Wright and Stephan Unterholzner of SHS, Joseph Verderame of WRHS and Lisa Snyder participated in the program. And in October of 2019, Megan Smith of LHS will take her turn to fly with the program.

Megan Smith of LHS will fly with SOFIA in October of 2019.

The AAA program is a professional development opportunity for high school science teachers designed to improve science teaching & learning and increase student STEM engagement.

Invited teachers fly two all-night missions on SOFIA, which is a highly modified Boeing 747SP airliner fitted with a 2.7-meter (106-inch) telescope combined with seven cameras and spectrographs that study celestial objects using infrared.

SOFIA operates during 10-hour overnight science missions at altitudes between 39,000 and 45,000 feet. This altitude is above more than 99 percent of the water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere that blocks infrared light from reaching ground-based observatories.

Megan Smith, who studied Genetics at UC Davis and is working on a STEM Master’s degree at Teachers College of San Joaquin, has taught at LHS for the past three years.

“I am incredibly passionate about STEM integration in the classroom and I felt that the SOFIA project would be an excellent opportunity to share real-world examples with my students,” Smith said.

“I also wanted to be a role-model for my female students and encourage them to follow a pathway in STEM, where women are currently underrepresented.”

To prepare for the rigorous program, every teacher must complete an online university astronomy course.

“I have started designing some projects for my STEAM 101 course that will include some of the information about NASA that I have learned,” Smith said.

“I am also setting up a virtual guest speaker to share their experiences working for NASA. I want my students to be exposed to many different STEM careers.”

Stephan Unterholzner, who graduated C.S.U. Sacramento with a degree in Chemistry and Computer Science, has taught at Sierra High School for 24 years.

“SOFIA has definitely given me more stories to tell,” Unterholzner said. “There are many applications in chemistry and physics that I can use when teaching.”

“The most interesting time was spent interacting with the scientists who were on the mission,” Unterholzner said. “Hearing what they were researching, how the instruments worked, and so on was invaluable.”

Joseph Verderame earned his Bachelor of Arts from Sonoma State University with a Major in Chemistry and a Minor in Biology. He has taught at Weston Ranch High School for 15 years.

“Since I completed my flight week in the SOFIA program, I have taken a deep reflection into how I teach the electromagnetic spectrum,” Verderame said. “I have integrated pieces of the NASA SOFIA curriculum throughout my courses.”

For many teachers, it is a chance to watch large-scale science in action.

“Of all of the things I experienced, the most educational was the first-hand observation of how many different people it takes to run a program like SOFIA,” Verderame said. “It was staggering to observe in person.”

Christopher Courtney earned his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from UC Davis and has taught for MUSD for 19 years, and 11 years prior to that for other districts.

“My students now have more hands-on learning activities to do because of the materials provide by SETI,” Courtney said. “Having a chance to interact with practicing scientists and engineers was fantastic. I began to fully understand how the infrared telescope and attached instruments worked together.”

Some of these projects involve other sources of data collection.

“I am currently working on a citizen science project out of NASA-JPL where my students will be able to operate a full size (24 meter) radio telescope located in southern California from our classroom,” Unterholzner said. “We will analyze data from the telescope as it looks at a variety of objects from black holes to quasars, as well as our own Milky Way Galaxy.”

Jeffrey Baldwin, who studied Mathematics at Eastern Washington University, has taught at Lathrop High School for 11 years. He has taught for MUSD for a total of 27 years, and was one of the first MUSD teachers selected for the SOFIA program.

“I am an astronomer, a pilot, and this is a telescope in an airplane,” Baldwin said. “The optics of SOFIA are interesting to me, the ability to observe infra-red astronomy from above the stratosphere.”

Baldwin loved seeing science obtained, collected, and recorded in raw form. “Books always show the conclusion, but the first-hand experience of data collection is really remarkable,” Baldwin said.

“Each individual on SOFIA was the best in their field. How lucky was I to be part of that?”

Baldwin has also taken the opportunity to facilitate Star Gazing events at LHS and in partnership with MELS Garage.

Baldwin said, “Sharing my experiences with my students will hopefully encourage them to continue on with a life of exploration.”

Megan Smith is looking forward to her turn to fly.

“I am so incredibly excited for the immersive STEM week and flights this Fall. I plan on sharing my experiences with my high school classroom, with my Verizon Innovative Learning STEM Summer Camp middle-school girls, and with my students in the STEM II Masters program at TCSJ,” Smith said.

She added, “I believe I will walk away with a lot of great knowledge in Astronomy, hands-on learning activities, and real-world applications that I can implement in my lessons.”