Dr. Richard Cummins, President

Columbia Basin College (CBC) shares a vision with the Tri-Cities community to provide a nurturing environment for experiential learning opportunities leading to superior educational outcomes in the STEM disciplines. Our instructors, staff and administrators continuously look to advance the boundaries of scientific understanding and developing knowledge that serves the interests of community, state and nation. Through teaching, mentoring, and supporting Delta High School initiatives, CBC is proud of its role in preparing students in the Tri-Cities to become leaders in science, technology, medicine, and related fields. CBC's commitment to science and mathematics does not stop at our support of Delta High School as CBC launched the first full-service Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) community college program in the state of Washington. With the growing need to fill Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, CBC recognizes the importance to our community and our nation's future. In a world that is increasingly driven by science and technology, this shared mission for the sciences at CBC is of principal importance.

Fundamentally, CBC is about access and opportunity to educational programs that:

1. Enable students to complete requirements for the first two years of a university education (academic);
2. Enable students to complete job preparation requirements for careers in the Tri-Cities economy (workforce) and
3. Enable students to prepare for success in college level courses (basic skills). It is through the academic instructional area that CBC has had this profound positive impact on science education.

Promoting the importance of science education among the general public

As part of its mission, Columbia Basin College (CBC) is committed to enhancing scientific awareness and helping extend learning opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). To these ends, CBC uses astronomy, with its great popular appeal and fundamental relationship with other physical sciences, to instill interest in a broad spectrum of science related careers. The observatory supports the College's objective of enhanced community outreach access. To date the observatory is available to school districts and the community at large. Every Friday evening the observatory is open to the public so individuals can personally perform operations with the telescope and other equipment. This hands on approach is an excellent way to stimulate interest in the sciences. More than 25000 students and visitors have come to the facility since its dedication in 2004. In its nearly six year operating period the usage factor of the observatory is about 90% of available time.

In addition to faculty driven activities, CBC hosts K-12 students during the GEAR-UP days, where students are exposed to a variety of different disciplines and careers. There is always a session that focuses specifically on STEM careers and education. At this session, the importance of taking four years of math and science courses in high schools is emphasized. Students learn about careers within the STEM fields. Furthermore, the College provides a "math lecture" so students are able to experience what it is like to be in a college math classroom.

Seeking out and engaging new and diverse participants and/or investors in science education

CBC hosts an annual event Engineering Day, which last year was changed to be MESA Day to broaden the focus to represent all STEM disciplines. At MESA Day, local STEM professionals present their careers and projects they work on to CBC STEM students. They also participate in a networking lunch where each STEM professional is grouped with two or three CBC STEM students. This event serves two purposes 1) providing CBC students with a professional conference setting and no cost to them and the opportunity for local STEM companies and organizations to meet the future STEM professionals and experience first-hand the amount of influence they have. Additionally, CBC has been a strong supporter of the Math and Science Summer Camp through the Outreach Department. The summer camps are offered to middle schools students free of charge. This last year, CBC participated in the Expanding Your Horizons event. Expanding Your Horizons promotes math and science to middle-school aged girls. Furthermore, the CBC MESA Community College Program Director is on the Yakima Valley/Tri-Cities MESA K-12 Board. The board consists of a variety of STEM professionals that work together to promote math and science within the Yakima valley and Tri-Cities K-12 schools, families, and communities.

CBC is spearheading the effort to secure funding from multiple sources (state, federal and private) to complete construction of a planetarium education center on the campus of CBC. The planetarium education center is the second phase of an ongoing effort to construct an integrated observatory/planetarium complex at CBC. The completion of this join multi-use facility will represent a substantial and concerted effort to improve the quality of science education in the region as well as the state as a whole. It will be an effective teaching tool in the hands of not only college but public school teachers as well. The ultimate objective of this initiative is to promote the desire for more students to pursue the sciences, engineering, mathematics and technology degrees at CBC and other colleges and universities in the area. It will also help meet the need to grow locally the human resources badly needed in science and technology positions that are coming available due to the retirement of an aging high technology workforce.

Enabling and influencing others to act in the interest of science education and/or its reform

The National Laboratory in the Tri-Cities, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, offered a challenge to the Tri-Cities community by proposing to donate over $1.0 million for the creation of a STEM high school. A group of local leaders, the three major school districts and Columbia Basin College formed a committee and accepted that challenge. Today, Delta High School, a STEM educational endeavor, is in its second year of operations with a student body of 200 students. CBC's contribution was the lease of the facility to house the high school and assistance with the renovations that were necessary to bring the facility up to code. CBC's contribution enabled the high school to begin operations well before anyone expected and at the lowest possible cost. It was CBC's strong ties to the community and its belief in the importance of science education that attracted them to this partnership and the willingness to donate their facilities in the interest of science education.

In the past, CBC had the TMP project and as a result of that, we have continued to partner with Kennewick School District by providing comprehensive testing and outreach efforts to determine if they are at college level mathematics. The goal of this is for high school students to understand how important it is for them to take four years of math and science while in high school, regardless of whether or not they plan to attend a four-year university straight out of high school.

Making enhancements to science education by efforts at local, regional and/or state level in Washington

CBC has consistently provided staff and facilities resources for K-12 science and mathematics initiatives. For the past 3 years, CBC Math/Science Department Dean Gary Olson has arranged for classroom space, custodial and security support for SE Washington LASER/ESD 123 Foundational Science Kit Workshops free of charge. Over 400 K-5 teachers in Southeast Washington have benefited as they participated in these 12 hour workshops. In addition, CBC has provided instructional support for the Educational Service District 123 Math Science Partnership Grant Summer Academy. Mike Durst, Director of the CBC Observatory, has provided free instruction and access to the observatory for 3 Science Content Series classes for elementary and middle school teachers in the region. This past June 2010, CBC Math instructors participated in the Mid-Columbia Math Grant, an NSF grant that has established a partnership between 5 regional school districts. This grant focuses on developing new and effective teaching strategies through collaboration, increasing content knowledge of grade level teachers, and increasing student learning in Mathematics. CBC's role consisted of providing space for the summer workshop to take place and CBC math instructors served as "experts" in these content knowledge areas. They were actively working with the K-5 teachers, helping them increase their knowledge within the content areas. CBC also helped in planning the workshop.