Brooklyn Science and Math Teacher Awarded Coveted Endeavor Fellowship

Brooklyn teacher Susan D’Auria was selected to receive an Endeavor Fellowship with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA.) The Endeavor Science Teaching Certificate Project, sponsored by NASA, trains educators who are working towards earning a STEM certificate from Columbia University’s Teachers College. A STEM certificate is awarded to teachers who have become proficient in teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"This year marks the acceptance of 51 new Endeavor fellows in Cohort 4," said Katherine Bender, Education Specialist for the project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The project is funded through NASA's Office of Education.  Implementation is through Glen Schuster and U.S. Satellite Laboratory, Rye, New York."

D’Auria is a teacher at Visitation Academy,  a private, parochial school for girls in the Fort Hamilton section of Brooklyn. As part of the Endeavor Fellowship she will interact and learn from education experts, NASA scientists, and with other fellowship recipients so that she will be able to take back to her classroom a more in-depth understanding of NASA research and discoveries. She will also be better prepared to inspire tomorrow’s scientists, astronauts, engineers and explorers.

“Endeavor offers educators research-based ways to bring relevant NASA and STEM discipline content to a school's curriculum.  The project helps educators to do this effectively," said Shelley Canright, Manager of Elementary, Secondary and e-Education at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The 2012 cohort of educators from around the U.S. represents many of our nation's future leaders in science, mathematics and technology education."

This NASA sponsored fellowship is highly-competitive, and was established partly to be a model for other organizations to find ways to improve teaching skills to better serve our children. The Endeavor program works in collaboration with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, whose mandate is to promote better, and more successful teaching and learning strategies.