I did my internship at Chabot Space and Science center. Chabot Space and Science Center started as a public observatory for schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chabot started in 1883 as the Oakland Observatory. The observatory was named because it was a gift from Anthony Chabot. In January 2000, anticipating the opening of the new facility, the organization changed its name from Chabot Observatory & Science Center to Chabot Space & Science Center. The new name was chosen to better convey the organization's focus on astronomy and the space sciences, while communicating both the broad range and the technologically advanced nature of programs available in the new Science Center.

The tasks I was assigned almost always involved working with visitors. My responsibilities included showing visitors a variety of scientific demonstrations and making sure they understood the scientific principles involved in the experiments. My two favorite demonstrations were solar cars and water rockets. The solar car experiment required a general understanding of photovoltaic systems, also known as solar cells, and Legos. Legos might seam unrelated to solar cars; however, the experiment requires visitors to use legs to build their cars. Thus this experiment also improves ones engineering capabilities. Water rockets were a lot easier to build; however, it is rocket science and it was part of my responsibility to convey this to the visitors. In addition, I got to work with telescopes on the observation deck and show the public different stellar objects. Thus I was able to make use of oral communication. My contributions to Chabot really affected the children who came more then anyone else. They were always so happy when they got to launch a water rocket or were building a solar car out of Legos.

The learning outcomes that are such an integral part of New Technology High School’s teaching philosophy are quite prevalent at Chabot. Oral communication was vitally important at Chabot because I was required to explain a variety of scientific concepts to people as well as demonstrating them. This also required a decent knowledge of science, which could be considered curricular literacy. Critical thinking was also demonstrated with the construction of the Lego cars. The most difficult thing I did while I was at Chabot was to build a Lego solar car with a working automatic two speed transmission and if that’s not critical thinking I don’t know what is. However, the part of my internship that most resembled New Technology High School’s philosophy was the astronomy team meetings. These meeting consisted of a group of volunteers, including myself, who were interested in astronomy. This is where I had the most interaction with other group members. We had group discussions about astronomy and astronomical concepts that we could share with visitors. The astronomy team also collaborated on what stellar images we would find in the night’s sky using telescopes that would present a spectacular view to the visitors. Astronomy team is also what gave me the most career preparation and got me closer to obtaining a PhD in astrophysics.

My internship at Chabot was a very rewarding experience, although it was not perfect. Working with the visitors was fun; however, if there were too many visitors than it would be quite difficult, and during the times where there were periods of no customers Chabot be came extremely boring. Even though, the number of visitors extremely affects the working conditions at Chabot I recommend this internship to anyone who likes science and working with kids, that is if you don not mind driving to Oakland which is the worst part about interning at Chabot.