Tuesday, March 1, 2005
CAMPUS BEAT: Partners help campus create opportunities
HASTIN ZYLSTRA / AAE Staff Writer
Imagine that you could study the temperature of Jupiter's atmosphere while still in middle school.
With the partnerships that the Lewis Center for Educational Research has set up, this is possible not only for students of the Academy for Academic Excellence but for students around the globe.
A school and a business working together — that is Lewis Center CEO Rick Piercy's unconventional idea. While many schools just look to textbooks and teachers for teaching, Piercy has set up partnerships between the Lewis Center and several businesses.
These businesses include NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; this partnership allows the Lewis Center to offer the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope Project that enables students from grades K-12 an opportunity to use and control the 110-foot, 500-ton radio telescope located north of Barstow.
"That partnership has allowed us to reach thousands of students here in the U.S., and teachers and students who are on American military bases overseas," Piercy said.
"Partnerships need to be mutually beneficial, positive to everyone," Piercy said. The partnerships create interesting and different opportunities for not only the students on campus, but also for the businesses.
Another partnership is with the Mojave Water Agency, designed to further natural-resources education and conservation awareness. We do this through various tools and education that the MWA provides. In return, our students collect data from monitoring wells for the MWA to use.
The Lewis Center also has partnerships with Victor Valley College, Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District, Victor Valley Waste Water Reclamation Authority, the University of Redlands and others.
The community plays a major role in partnerships.
"If it wasn't for the local support we have received for almost 20 years, the Lewis Center wouldn't exist," Piercy said. "But I am equally proud of the partnerships that we have had for years with businesses in the Victor Valley."
Editor's note: Campus Beat is a special page generated once a month by local high school teenagers.
This month's page comes from ACADEMY FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
Used with permission by Daily Press, Freedom Communication, 2005