COMETS Program Gets Oversight from Center Director
Wed Feb 6 2008
Dr. Laurie Ruberg, associate director of the Center for Educational Technologies®, is serving on the advisory board of an after-school program designed to improve science learning in at-risk youth in West Virginia.
Ruberg is representing the center on the advisory board for COMmunities Educating Tomorrow's Scientists (COMETS), which met Jan. 30 in Charleston, WV.
COMETS is a National Science Foundation-funded program to implement an Earth and space science program with the focus of learning science as inquiry. COMETS targets 200 low-income, underrepresented, minority students at four community centers in Charleston and Dunbar, WV, for inclusion in a NASA-centered informal science education program. Through innovative hands-on investigations coordinated with students' formal curricula, this program will excite, inspire, promote academic achievement, and expand regular school-time learning experiences for students in grades 3-5.
The project's goals are to implement an innovative and successful out-of-school-time science program, improve student attitudes toward science and achievement in Earth and space science, and improve knowledge of and appreciation of Earth and space science in formal, informal, and pre-service educators.
