In five-week sessions at the Gowen Field military base, you’ll find young students studying robotics, Newton’s laws of motion, computer-aided design (CAD), types of energy, and the structure of an atom, among other topics. Despite the rigor of the curriculum, these aren’t college or even high school interns. They’re elementary school students participating in the Department of Defense STARBASE Program.

STARBASE Idaho has been partnering with local school districts since 2018, providing innovative programming for low-income fifth graders. The free program serves 10 schools in Nampa, allowing kids hands-on experience in a range of STEM subjects. 

“When kids come on base, it’s a different environment,” said Courtney Taylor, STARBASE Idaho director and a former Nampa School District teacher. “Everything we do is hands on, and we’re constantly busy doing experiments. This can all be either cost or time prohibitive for teachers to do in their own classroom, but through this program kids are able to be engaged in STEM learning all day long.”

The goal of the program is to “foster academic success in STEM, encourage a growth mind-set, increase awareness of STEM career fields, and create opportunities to enhance student capacity in goal setting, teamwork, and perseverance.” All curriculum is standards-based and taught by certified teachers. 

Joanna Rodriguez, deputy director and instructor, said the program provides a lot of “Aha” moments, which she finds very satisfying. “Kids may think they are bad at math (or science, or engineering…) but we show them ways they encounter math already in everyday life, and they realize it’s not out of reach for them to be able to do these things,” she said.

Willow Creek teacher Heather Hellwig agrees that STARBASE is a great partnership. “The STARBASE staff do a wonderful job reinforcing and introducing the science standards we are teaching in fun ways. Students get the opportunity to learn with engaging hands-on activities that bring science to life for students and help inspire them to look into STEM careers. We enjoy going because students are engaged and excited about learning.”

The program also provides a careers book for kids to look through that outlines more than 100 careers, including what STEM skills they require and what education they’ll be expected to attain – ranging from a high school degree to a master’s degree or beyond. They also get to visit with Gowen-based personnel such as archaeologists, hazmat professionals, emergency management staff, Black Hawk pilots and more, asking questions, participating in hands-on experiments, and touring facilities.

STARBASE Idaho also partners with the district's migrant summer school program, traveling out to Nampa to provide 25 hours of hands-on learning on-site.

In Other Words

We always do a basic math lesson as a first-day activity where they have to turn a fraction into a decimal and then into a percent. The numbers we use are patterns from fingerprints — how many loops, whorls, and arches. I will have kids in my classroom who groan at the thought of having to do this, because it’s math. But by the end of the lesson, there is always at least one kid saying, “That’s all? It seems harder when I’m in the classroom.” I tell them it’s not harder, they are just working against themselves. They know how to do this. Their eyes pop because they didn’t realize they knew how to do this. We are just reinforcing what their teacher already told them, that what they are learning in the classroom is going to be useful somewhere else.

Watch a video of Willow Creek Elementary students at STARBASE Idaho.