Science Education Students and Alum Win Awards

CSTA Future Science Teacher Award 2007

Summer in the Sciences... What do science teachers do when school is out?

If you are a science teacher affiliated with CSULB, you get awards. This summer has been one of recognition for students from the Science Education Department. Two Science Teaching Credential candidates have been named recipients of the California Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Future Science Teachers Award.

William M. (Marc) Berkstresser

Marc is pursuing a single subject credential at CSU Long Beach, working towards becoming credentialed high school biology teacher. He is a 2007 Robert Noyce Scholar and Malcolm Oliphant Scholar, and a former Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal where he taught farmers how to plant trees in conjunction with their crops to increase food production and reduce erosion. Marc is a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force and served in Iraq where he tutored Iraqi children in his spare time. Marc taught life science this summer as part of CSULB's Young Scientists Camp program. This was his second year teaching at YSC.

Padma Haldar

Padma is pursuing a single subject credential at CSU Long Beach, working towards becoming a credentialed high school physics teacher. She is a 2006 Robert Noyce Scholar and recipient of an Outstanding Academic Achievement Award from the UCS Office of International Students. Padma is a science tutor at Pioneer High School in the Whittier USD, and works with elementary and middle school students in the Long Beach Better Leaning After School Today! (BLAST!) program. Padma taught chemistry this summer as part of the Summer Science Institute at Young Scientists Camp.

Teacher at Sea

December in the Sciences... What do science teachers do when school is out?

Jill Grace

In December, when most of the school community is looking forward to some time off from the rigors of the classroom, Jill Grace, CSULB Biology alumna and single subject credential alumna and now a student in the Science Education MS program, as well as the wife of Ray Grace, Chemistry Department Technician, will be the "Teacher at Sea" in the December Ridge2000 research cruise as a reward for her excellent work with middle school students during the 2006-2007 "Student Experiments At Sea" (SEAS) program. She will be participating in deep sea research on the R/V Atlantis out of Manzanillo, Mexico.

Links

• CSTA: http://cascience.org/07winners.html
• FLEXE: http://flexe.psu.edu/
• RIDGE2000: http://www.ridge2000.org/science/index.php
• GLOBE: http://www.globe.gov/fsl/html/templ.cgi?about