Sciences Education Foundation Background Information

After working together on Education Outreach at the Salk Institute from 1988 into the early 1990's, Anne Blue asked Patricia Winter if she would come to General Atomics to establish an Education Outreach Program.  Starting in 1992, they worked together to  help General Atomics host a series of High School Science days, involving tours of GA facilities by high school students and their teachers.  In 1993, GA scientists began working with Science Coordinators for the San Diego Schools in order to bring the business and research side of science into the classroom. The goal was to both to improve the quality of science education and to encourage more students to pursue science careers. In addition, the teachers' interactions with the scientists and exposure to everyday uses of their disciplines would help them to be better educators.

To attain this goal, four areas of core competency at GA were initially selected to form the basis for the development of inquiry-based education modules and associated workshops. Scientist/teacher teams wrote these modules, which fuse the content and methodology of industrial research and development with the teaching skills of experienced science teachers.

Hundreds of teachers attended these initial workshops, which include:

Since these workshops were developed, additional educational modules have been developed and presented to teachers at local, state, and national conferences. These additional workshops include:

The Line of Resistance module and the Explorations in Materials Science modules were revised in collaboration with the Institute for Chemical Education (ICE) at the University of Wisconsin. ICE is currently selling The Line of Resistance module nationwide.

In order to expand the program, the General Atomics Sciences Education Foundation [501(c) (3)] was established in 1995.

Since 1999, the General Atomics Sciences Education Foundation expanded its role to provide support for K-12 science education projects and has given over $1,036,000 to STEM education non-profit agencies to improve elementary, middle, and high school science, mostly in the San Diego area. The recipients include the San Diego Science Alliance, the PISCES project, the BEWiSE program, the Elementary Institute of Science, the KISS Institute for Botball, Expanding Your Horizons, the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair, Classroom of the Future Foundation, the Arts Bus Express, the Midway Museum Education Program, the Business Roundtable for Education, the USD/Year of Space, the San Diego High Tech Program, the San Diego County Office of Education, the San Diego Science Festival, Tau Beta Pi / Think Green, the Triton Engineering Student Council, the Ocean Discovery Institute, the San Diego chapter of the Association for Women in Science, the San Diego Children's Discovery Museum, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, the Connect Foundation, Big Brother Big Sisters of San Diego County (Beyond School Walls-STEM), FIRST Robotics of San Diego, The New Children's Museum of San Diego, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego STEM program, San Diego STEAM Maker Fest, the San Diego Natural History Museum, the Secondary Science Olympiad of San Diego County, Science Delivered, San Diego Business and Youth Career Expo, American Physical Society Excellence in Physics Education Award endowment, the Built Environment Education Program of the San Diego Architectural Foundation, the Go For Launch Program of Higher Orbits, Teacher Enrichment Program of the Center for Excellence in Education, North County Education Foundation/Classical Academy Super STEM Saturday, Innovations for Learning/TutorMate, EnCorps STEM Teachers Program, MCRD Marine Corps Museum Foundation, Birch Aquarium, MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute, UCSD Society of Hispanic Engineers Empower Conference, American Physical Society Physics Quest program, Science Buddies, STEMDude Foundation, Biocom Institute, San Diego LabRats, DETOUR, Ocean Connectors, Pi Wars UCSD, Boys and Girls Clubs of Oceanside, Kid Spark Education, Treobytes, Coastal Roots Farm, A Step Beyond, ECOLIFE Conservation, Links Foundation, MiraCosta College Foundation, Science Spark, Museum of Science, Hubert L. “Hooks” Jones Colorado Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, Civil Air Patrol, California Wing, San Diego Cadet Squadron 144, American Society of Naval Engineers, Asian Culture and Media Alliance, Girls Rising, STEM-ED Inc., Los Angeles County Science and Engineering Fair, Alpine Education Foundation, Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center, All Girls STEM Society, Air & Space Forces Association CyberPatriot and StellarXplorers programs, Greater Than Tech, Generation STEAM, and Library Foundation SD

The Foundation has also participated in professional society judging at the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair since 1995.  Awards are presented in the junior and senior divisions for the best project involving advanced materials, or the innovative use of conventional materials.  The project can involve the development of new materials, the study of material properties, or the application of materials in a new or innovative way in the construction of a device or structure. An honorable mention award is also presented in each division.

In 2010, the Foundation launched the GASSSS (GA Scientists/Engineers Supporting Science/Engineering for Students) Program to provide funding for the purchase of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics materials for K-12 classrooms, contingent on a GA employee supporting the implementation of these materials. As of December 2023, 1063 employees have participated in the program and over $242,000 in funding has been provided.

In 2017, the Foundation initiated a partnership with Chapter One (Formerly TutorMate), to promote literacy and to help at-risk students learn to read on target by the end of first grade. GA employees are currently partnering with the New Haven School District in the San Francisco Bay area. The program includes science stories that promote both STEM and fundamental reading skills.

Links to all the different Foundation resources including education modules, presentations, and publications can be obtained via the Foundation home page: www.sci-ed-ga.org.

For additional information, please contact Dr. Lawrence Woolf at Lawrence.Woolf@ga-asi.com