SSU Launches STEM Program for Autistic Learners

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Sonoma State University was awarded $4.96 million from NASA earlier this year to fund a campus multi-year program that will engage students on the autism spectrum for STEM learning. NASA will also implement mentors for the students who enroll in the program’s curriculum. With this program to introduce students to NASA science, autistic learners will gain knowledge in the field of STEM, while also promoting growth in social skills and self-efficacy.

“The program has launched and has lots of activities planned for the summer. Four local high schools (including Anova in Santa Rosa) are trying out the first set of NASA activities, including remote astronomy using robotic telescopes,” says Julia Gonzalez, the SSU assistant vice president for strategic communications. “Also, 16 student interns have been identified for summer projects, and will be mentored by 13 different NASA subject matter experts. The internship projects began on June 15.”

The other high schools alongside Anova are Orion Academy in Moraga, Oak Hill in San Anselmo and Stanbridge Academy in San Mateo. The other major partners are located in New York City: the Education Development Center and New York Hall of Science.

The goal is to have hundreds of high school autistic learners from both California and New York over the next five years to conduct and participate in a myriad of informal NASA-sponsored activities. Some of these studies and projects will include building and launching rocket payloads and using SSU’s NASA-funded telescope.

Top STEM Jobs

Well-paying careers that offer new and different challenges that match a person’s talents and skills, while offering room to grow, are hard to come by. According to U.S. News, following a methodology that looks at the percentage of job openings and ranks them by salary, 10-year growth, unemployment rates, stress level and work-life balance among other facets, these are the top 10 jobs in the U.S. today.

  1. Physician Assistant
  2. Software Developer
  3. Nurse Practitioner
  4. Medical and Health Services Manager
  5. Physician
  6. Statistician
  7. Speech Language Pathologist
  8. Data Scientist
  9. Dentist
  10. Veterinarian

source: money.usnews.com

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