Tag: Steward Observatory

Scientific discoveries are a driving force that propels mankind into a wondrous and fantastic future. Science has made an incredibly powerful impact on us all.

Just Compare Your Life in 1990 to Now

• E-Mail – we wrote letters on paper.
• Internet/Google – we used encyclopedias or went to the library.
• Cell phones – we used land lines and no one asked “Where are you?” when they called.
• Facebook/Twitter – we met people in person.
• MP3 music/i-Pods – we bought cassette tapes.
• Digital Cameras – we used film and didn’t see the pictures until they were developed.
• Texting – we talked.

To instill the capability to imagine tomorrow’s seemingly impossible things, kids today need a solid science curriculum. Thank goodness for teachers like TIA’s Rebecca Diaz! Ms. Diaz, a veteran with the U.S. Navy as an electrician, now teaches kindergarten and 1st grade at TIA’s Broadway campus. She is providing wondrously rich science experiences for her primary grade students.

Project Astro

One of the ways Rebecca has provided her students with an exciting science curriculum is her affiliation with Project Astro. Project Astro provides training and curriculum ideas for teachers. It was also through this program that Rebecca met and started partnering with Steward Observatory astronomer,  Kathy Zelaya. Rebecca’s talent for teaching coupled with Kathy’s real life experience as a scientist, provide the students in Ms. Diaz’s classes an incredible science foundation. In fact, Kathy and Rebecca’s  collaboration, which started in 2009, was recently awarded the 2016 Partnership Award from Project Astro.

TIA Students Win 1st & 2nd in Science Fair

Ms. Zelaya comes to Ms Diaz’s classroom a few times a year to support and expand on the science curriculum for the students. She also comes to review the projects these budding scientists have put together for the annual regional science fair. Several students from Ms. Diaz’s class have won 1st or 2nd place in the science fair sponsored by Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Foundation held at U of A. One of these very young 1st place winners did a project involving electricity using a lime to generate enough “juice” to illuminate a light bulb! Another 1st grader did a project comparing water pollution levels. These are amazingly advanced projects for 5 and 6 year olds! It is in classrooms like Rebecca Diaz’s that tomorrow’s scientists are being taught the wonders and possibilities of science. The sky is not the limit for these little ones. One can only imagine the fantastic contributions they will make to this world.  

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