MITRE Externships Lend Real-World Context to High School Classes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Bedford, Massachusetts, September 26, 2006 — As part of the Leadership Initiative for Teaching and Technology (LIFT²) program, the MITRE Corporation hosted two summer externships for high school math teachers at its Bedford, Mass., location. The externships are designed to increase student interest in careers in science, technology, engineering, and math by providing teachers with workplace experience that can be applied to their classroom curriculum.

The LIFT² program was created by the Massachusetts Metro South/West Regional Employment Board, a workforce development nonprofit organization, to address the state's growing shortage of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals. LIFT² helps middle and high school teachers integrate STEM workplace skills and career information into their classrooms by providing them with industry externships and relevant graduate coursework. LIFT2 currently places 20–25 teachers in paid externships each summer, and plans are in place to expand that number to 100 in 2007.

MITRE's participation in the program was initiated by Senior Vice President and General Manager Robert Nesbit. He said, "When I learned about LIFT², I instantly realized how important it is for MITRE to participate. MITRE is committed to being a good corporate citizen, and LIFT² offers us an excellent opportunity to give back to the community while also helping to address a workforce shortage that could directly impact companies like MITRE." As a LIFT² extern at MITRE, Weston High School math teacher Emily Harvey worked with MITRE's Crypto and Information Assurance Research Department to search for flaws in Internet security protocols. She plans to use the experience to develop number theory and cryptography lessons for her algebra classes.

Extern Mike Hopps, a Wayland High School math and computer science teacher, worked in MITRE's Advanced Technologies Networking Group and developed a computer simulation that answered complex questions about network and system behavior. The skills he learned at MITRE will help him add a networking component to his advanced placement computer science course.

Both Harvey and Hopps agree that their MITRE externships have provided them with valuable information they can use in the classroom, ranging from examples of how math is used in the workplace to a deeper understanding of the variety of STEM careers available to students. Hopps said, "Now that I’ve been at MITRE and seen the different niches that exist, I feel more confident advising my students on careers in computer science."

MITRE (www.mitre.org) is a not-for-profit company that provides systems engineering, research and development, and information technology support to the government. It operates federally funded research and development centers for the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service, with principal locations in Bedford, Mass., and McLean, Va.

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