Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1190776
"Explainer" Brenna Rollins with Jett Vindiola, Ashlyn Mass, teacher Daniel Gibbs, and Yarely Vasquez. "I love it! It's my favorite class," says explainer Eric Gomez, 18. "I love interacting with the kids and introducing lessons. I love watching their faces light up when they begin to understand something." e explainers benefit as much as the young students, says Daniel, who shares that some teens are considering teaching careers because they enjoy it so much. ey attend community events such as fairs and farmer's markets, and since 2018 have engaged more than 12,000 community members through interactive science projects. Among things the high schoolers have created for IVDZ: • A sand bed that teaches about solids and liq- uids. When millions of sand grains in the container are agitated with air and shaking, the entire mass behaves like a liquid and flows. Steel ball bearings sit on top of O W T O E N G A G E stu- dents? Rocket science! A collaboration between NASA and College of the Desert (COD) has successfully launched, thanks to Jorge Perez, adjunct professor in math. In March, the NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) program selected COD to participate in a pilot project called NASA On Campus. It is one of six community colleges serving minority students in the project, funded by NASA's Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP). "I felt proud to be one of the six," says Perez, who facilitated the collab- oration. "It's important for students to see NASA present on campus so they can envision themselves there in the future. NASA's presence gave them the confidence to believe in themselves." (The other participating colleges are Cerritos College in Norwalk, two colleges in Mississippi, one in New Jersey, and one in Oklahoma.) NCAS offers community college students focusing on STEM careers a weeklong experience at NASA centers. Nearly 200 internships have been awarded to students since 2007, helping students obtain jobs in the aerospace industry. The travel may be difficult for some students — espe- cially minority students — so NASA On Campus was created last summer to help level the playing field. For NASA On Campus, 24 COD students first took a five-week online course, administered and funded by IT REALLY IS ROCKET SCIENCE Jorge Perez's oasis of excellence College of the Desert Faculty Association GIBBS continued from page 21 NASA. Perez was the instructional assistant for the self-paced class, answering students' questions. Those who passed participated in NASA-cre- ated engineering design and robotics competitions on campus. NASA sent representatives for the weeklong competitions, and will award a student from each of the six campuses a NASA summer internship. "Student groups competed for a mock NASA contract," says Perez. "The focus was to design, develop and construct a functioning rover to perform tasks. During this time students learned team-building skills, listened to NASA speakers, and worked with mentors from local industries who were COD alums." To prepare for the pilot project, Perez received online training and visited NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Then he was invited to help run the NCAS program at Langley Research Center in Virginia, which he found "extremely useful" in deciding what would work (and not work) at a community college. COD has been part of the Califor- nia Space Grant Consortium since 2015, with Perez as lead. The consor- tium is the state's implementation H Photo by Scott Buschman 22 cta.org