Military Program Aimed at Teaching 5th Graders Math, Science Unveiled in Los Al

Officials cut the ribbon on a new building at the Los Alamitos military base that will house a teaching program for under-privileged 5th-grade students Tuesday.

State, military and local representatives officially opened the new STARBASE program at the Joint Forces Training Base after 11 a.m. under a cloudy sky.

A 40-state Department of Defense youth program, STARBASE aims to teach 5th grade students the importance of science, technology, engineering and math, and especially focuses on under-privileged students.

Military officials estimate the local STARBASE will serve about 4,000 students from Orange County, Los Angeles County and Riverside County every year.

“I think it was really exciting,” said 10-year-old Ruby Ardom, a student from the Bushnell Way Elementary School in Los Angeles, who was part of the inaugural STARBASE class.

“I feel special,” Ardom added. Ardom said her favorite experience so far was making Alka-Seltzer explosions in class.

According to military officials, the combined construction cost for the dedicated STARBASE buildings on the Los Al base are about $2 million, with the DoD paying part of the cost and the state paying the other part. The Army National Guard runs the majority of the STARBASEs in the 40 states where the program is active, but other branches of the military manage some of them, too. For example, the San Diego program is run by the Navy.

Earlier this year the program had faced extinction because of proposed budget amendment that would have removed all STARBASE funding across the nation. However, to the relief of several military and local officials, the bill passed without the amendment. California State Assembly Speaker John Perez, a former Bushnell Way student, cut the ribbon.

“Our state is committed to education and the opportunities that come with it,” Perez said. “We owe it to students that they have all that is required for them to have the best start in life.”

The program focus on fifth grade students because, educators say, that's the age many students lose their interest in science and math. 

When fully complete, the new facility will have a surface-of-mars themed room, interactive Lego science experiments and a 3D printer that will enable students to design planes, spaceships and submarines and then actually create them out of plastic.

Cynthia McGraa military instructor at the school said she’d watched the kids learning earlier today and it made her feel like a kid again, too.

“We just got permission not too long ago to get to use the airfield to shoot off rockets,” said McGraa, her excitement obvious.

Two other STARBASE facilities exist in California: one in Sacramento and one in San Diego operated by the Navy.

The California National Guard hosted the ribbon cutting, and Major General David S. Baldwin, the adjutant general of the California Military Department, gave some of the opening remarks.

Baldwin said showing students the opportunities that hard sciences can provide is critical to the state’s success.

“We need future leaders trained in those skill sets,” Baldwin said.

Attendees included California Assemblyman Travis Allan, Los Alamitos Councilmen Dean Grose and Richard Murphy, Los Alamitos Unified School District Superintendent Sherry Kropp, members of the Sunburst Youth Academy and 26 students of a Bushnell Way fifth grade class.

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