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Master's Program Update

by Alan Colburn.

Padmini Kishore, Brighton Oothoudt and Tracy Tegtmeier all participated in graduation ceremonies this past spring Padmini Kishore, Brighton Oothoudt and Tracy Tegtmeier all participated in graduation ceremonies this past spring.
The master's degree program welcomed fifteen new students this fall, our largest new cohort. As always, they come from diverse backgrounds—we have three museum professionals, and four or five elementary folks, as well as eight students joining the secondary science education track. We also have our first full time students. These students join the thirty or so active students already in the program to give us over 45 graduate students. Those numbers are dwindling—for a good reason. Students are graduating! Several students successfully defended their theses this past year. Cara Hanes-Hales investigated high school students' ideas about matter, chemical, and physical reactions. Padmini Kishore completed a study examining students' ideas about solar energy. Tanya Mandl discussed teachers' views on the place of gardens in the elementary science curriculum. Tracy Tegtmeier examined at-risk middle school students attitudes about science. And Susan Hunt investigated relationships between the math and science achievement of urban students. Five of our students just submitted proposals to present at national educational research meetings. We are proud of our increased numbers, our students, and the ever increasing number of our alumni!

This past year Padmini Kishore received scholarship support from the William C. Ritz Scholarship fund to support her travel to the annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association conference in Boston. She presented some of the activities associated with her thesis at the conference. Several other graduate students had funding from the Amgen Scholarship or their own schools to attend. Jill Grace, Marissa Whitmore, Nancy Ton were in Boston as well. At any science education conference we host a CSULB Science Education get-together. Jill, Marissa, Nancy and Padmini met with Laura Henriques and Marc Berkstresser for dinner and to toast the CSULB Science Education program.

Marissa Whitmore, Nancy Ton, Padmini Kishore, Laura Henriques and Jill Grace at the 2008 NSTA CSULB Gathering (picture taken by Marc Berkstresser) Marissa Whitmore, Nancy Ton, Padmini Kishore, Laura Henriques and Jill Grace at the 2008 NSTA CSULB Gathering (picture taken by Marc Berkstresser).

New Features

Some new features have been added to the classes in our MS program. Bill Straits has added a new twist to SCED 500, Life Science Applications for K-8. He's got students writing articles for publication in NSTA journals as the centerpiece assignment in the class [link to the Scholars Author article]. Tom Kelty will be bringing students in SCED501, Earth Science Applications for K-8, to Zzyzx Desert Studies Center this fall as part of the field work component of his course. Jim Kisiel will be bringing in more community partners as part of the SCED553 course, Science Learning in Informal Settings, this spring. As part of a Community Engagement grant he's made linkages with area museums for study and visits within that course.

STAR Seminar Series

The department began a new graduate seminar series last year, Science Teaching And Research Seminar, affectionately known as the STAR Seminar Series. Each month brought a different science educator to campus to share their research. Last year we had speakers from CSU San Bernardino, CSU Fullerton, CSU Los Angeles, San Diego State, Curtin University (Australia) and CSU Long Beach. Topics addressed included insight into the flurry of recent science education focused reports and documents, science education and service learning, high quality urban science teaching, classroom learning environment research and calibrated peer review. Seminars are open to the public and we invite you to join us! We meet at 4:15 for coffee and socializing with the seminar starting at 4:30. You can find out the Fall 2008 speakers and dates in the Fall Science Education Events or on the STAR Seminar Website.