NASA invited 27 education majors from around the U.S. to Johnson Space Center in Houston, from July 11-23. Among the 27 who attended the Pre-Service Teacher Institute were Wichita State education majors Jennifer Cole and Diana Meister.

The Pre-Service Teacher Institute (PSTI) featured two weeks of training, touring and challenging coursework designed to integrate fun and interesting ways to study math and science in the classroom. The PSTI is open to prospective kindergarten-eighth grade education majors.

“It was definitely the best experience of my education,” said Diana Meister, a senior elementary education major in her last semester of student teaching at Mueller Elementary School.

“How often do you get to go to NASA and spend two weeks being taught by the experts?” she said.

The two-week camp featured inside tours of the Johnson Space Center, intense research and study, all while developing curriculums to make learning fun for students.

But the fun went hand-in-hand with hard work.

“We had homework that they had us do before we got there,” said Jennifer Cole, a senior elementary education major. “Lots of reading and lots of assignments.”

The institute focused primarily on STEM teaching; science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“We need kids, college students, going into STEM careers. As a nation we need to be globally competitive,” said Meister.

Meister said more and more students are avoiding STEM careers.

“They don’t have enough confidence and they don’t see the real world application. They need teachers to instill the love for science, the curiosity and just to make math and science fun.”

The institute, designed primarily to help make learning math and science easier for students, also benefited the soon-to-be teachers.

“I loved all the resources that we were either given or told where to find on NASA’s website,” said Cole. “I had no idea they were out there.”

Both Cole and Meister were able to conquer their fear of science and technology. Each hopes to quell the fears of future students in their classrooms as well.

“The thing that I liked the best is that I came away not being as intimidated by even some of the technology,” said Meister.

Cole agreed.

“Science scares me because I don’t completely understand it so how am I going to teach it to a child? But after attending this I realized it’s not as hard as I thought, and there are tons of activities that I can do with the students,” she said.

Tours of the Johnson Space Center are an additional perk of the PSTI.

“The tours were amazing, definitely part of my favorite; it’s hard to explain it and describe it to other people who weren’t there,” said Cole.

Cole and Meister agreed that the friendships made were just as valuable as the lessons learned.

“There were 27 total girls there from all over and you were together night and day for two weeks straight,” said Cole.

“You ate together, slept together, it was everything together to where, thankfully, we all formed really good friendships and could bounce ideas off of each other too,” she said.

Cole and Meister hope to integrate fun learning methods into the classroom when they begin teaching.

“It’s just about making math and science and that sort of thing fun,” said Meister. “I just want kids to come away as excited about whatever we did in the classroom as I was when we were at NASA.”

“It’s almost like you make it so much fun they don’t realize that they’re learning,” said Cole.

So whether it’s making learning fun for students, showing fellow teachers new learning methods or taking tours of the Johnson Space Center, the PSTI has changed the lives of Meister and Cole.

“We were very fortunate,” said Meister. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

For more information on the PSTI at Johnson Space Center, visit http://education.jsc.nasa.gov/psti/.