SAVANNAH, Ga. - The Third Infantry Division and Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield partnered with the Savannah-Chatham County School System, the STARBASE Savannah Foundation and Gulfstream to open the first-ever STARBASE Academy on an active-Army installation when STARBASE Savannah officially opened on Hunter Army Airfield, March 20.
At the STARBASE Savannah, local fifth graders will experience 20-25 hours of "hands-on, mind-on" activities in science, technology, engineering and math, using a common core curriculum that meets or exceeds national standards. They will interact with military personnel to explore careers and observe the subject applications in the real world.
"We found that they influence in the fifth grade is very, very high," said Scott Martens, STARBASE Savannah Foundation chairman. "[The goal is to] get them excited about math, science, engineering and technology so that they'll follow it up into the middle school, high school and then maybe have a career in it. I always look at it as a career-helping stimulus package, but it's also, being on a military base, it's a pretty good recruiting package, too."
Savannah-Chatham County Public School System Superintendent Dr. Thomas Lockamy said STARBASE Savannah will begin with students from Title-I, federally-funded schools that experience the greatest academic challenges, and children who live on Hunter Army Airfield. He said as the academy is able to secure funding for transportation, more fifth-grade classes will participate -- with the goal of all fifth graders in Chatham County public schools getting a week at the academy.
The leadership at Hunter believes that STARBASE Savannah is going to make the installation even more desirable to military families.
"I think it's going to be viral," said Col. (P) Christopher Hughes, 3rd Infantry Division deputy commanding general-support. "I think once people find out what's available here at Hunter, people are going to want to get assigned to Hunter Army Airfield; they're going to find a way to get in the 3rd Infantry Division, the 1/75 Rangers, everyone's going to want to know how they can take advantage of that."
Classes began at the STARBASE Savannah, March 12. The first two classes to travel through the Academy were from Pulaski Elementary, a Savannah-Chatham County Public School System school built on Department of Defense land on Hunter Army Airfield.
The Department of Defense provides the funding for the staff of the Academy, while the private STARBASE Savannah Foundation, thanks to corporate sponsors like Gulfstream, provides the classroom building and the tools the students will use while there.
"It's a perfect opportunity to put students from Savannah-Chatham County in an environment where they can learn, in a dynamic and fun way, about science, technology, engineering and math -- and I'll admit a little extra emphasis on aerospace -- and enable them to interact with the incredible role models in our armed forces," said Ira Berman, Gulfstream's senior vice president for administration and general counsel.
In the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment, U.S. students ranked 17 out of 65 counties in science literacy, and 25 out of 65 countries in math literacy; in the U.S., less than 10 percent of graduate degrees are conferred in engineering, mathematics and computer science, which ranks 20 internationally in these critical areas. The goal of STARBASE is to raise the interest and improve children's knowledge and skills in science, technology, engineering and math, which will provide for a highly educated and skilled American workforce that can meet the advanced technological requirements of the Defense Department.
The Hunter location is the 75th STARBASE Academy in the U.S., in 34 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and 3rd ID leadership hopes this is just the first -- not the last - on an Army installation.
"Hopefully what the Army will do, in conjunction with civilian partnerships, is consider this at other installations," said Col. Hughes. "In terms of what this brings to [Hunter Army Airfield and the 3rd Infantry Division], the value cannot be measured and I think it would be very important for our community and for the Army to look at this very hard and think about it for the future."
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