Star Trek 50th anniversary provides boost for interdisciplinary studies

The Bonsall Unified School District utilizes the New Technology program in which students interact with local industry and serve internships. The New Technology curriculum also emphasizes interdisciplinary fields.

An increased focus on interdisciplinary studies is expected as the 50th anniversary of the airing of the first Star Trek episode will be celebrated. The science fiction genre integrates science into language arts, and since science fiction authors predict sociological as well as technological changes science fiction also has applications in social studies.

The concept of a black female military officer was not a common American idea when the first Star Trek episode aired on September 8, 1966, which was also during a period when a Russian serving with Americans on the same military mission was not a contemporary idea (Ensign Chekhov did not appear on Star Trek until 1967).

The marbles which were part of the Enterprise's computer consoles were used not for budget reasons but due to special effects technology limitations, and the special effects in subsequent science fiction television shows and movies have brought science into filmmaking as well as into science fiction writing.

"I've been a huge proponent of interdisciplinary studies," said BUSD superintendent Justin Cunningham.

Cunningham has been the Bonsall district superintendent since 2008 and previously spent 19 years with the San Diego County Office of Education. One of his SDCOE assignments involved the book Family Pictures by Carmen Lomas Garza, which is actually in both English and Spanish and also has the title Cuadros de Familia. Garza is of Mexican descent and was born and raised in Texas, and the book which includes both art and writing recreates her experiences.

In addition to the cultural, art, and historical disciplines, Cunningham's health assignment overlapped the book's portions about Garza's family handling various situations. "That had a real focus on resiliency," he said.

Cunningham's experience with Family Pictures helped form his support of interdisciplinary studies. "We could make something much more powerful by integrating different disciplines," he said.

Sullivan Middle School eighth-grade history students study the debates between federal and state control which took place in the early years of the United States, but not necessarily through textbooks which provide second-hand accounts of the writings of America's founding fathers. "They learn about that by using the technology to get to the primary sources of what these gentlemen wrote," Cunningham said.

The Sullivan students also dress in 18th-century costume and give speeches at a mock Constitutional convention.

A lexile comprehension system assigns a level of comprehension to books and other literature. "If a student goes through English literature, they reach a certain lexile, but that lexile is nowhere near what they need to address the science literature," Cunningham noted.

Interdisciplinary activity involving both science and literature can increase that comprehension.

"It does align with how the brain works," Cunningham said. "The brain is integrated."

The original Star Trek series, which was aired on NBC from 1966 to 1969, is set in the 23rd century. Current high school and middle school students may think of Starfleet communicators as an obsolete flip-phone version of cell phones which now allow for much more than voice communication. In 1966, what is now called a cell phone was something television viewers laughed at on the ABC television series Get Smart.

"The accelerated pace of change is one thing we have to get our kids to understand," Cunningham said.

Cunningham has his teachers calculate the year when their students will be the age the teachers are currently and then asks the teachers what the world will be like when the students are that age. Much of the technology students have today will be as obsolete as the computers which ran on BASIC (a Hewlett-Packard computer language) when Cunningham received his masters degree in 1979. "We can make sure that, number one, they know how to learn," Cunningham said. "Everybody's going to have to learn how to think."

The first Star Trek episode, The Man Trap, was written by George Clayton Johnson. Johnson and William F. Nolan co-authored Logan's Run, which was published in 1967. The movie version of Logan's Run was released in 1976, by which time the youth rebellion of the 1960s triggered by the Vietnam War and the voting age were no longer present (the change of the end-of-life age from 21 in the book to 30 in the movie also allowed for older actors).

The May 1977 release of the original Star Wars movie enhanced interest in science fiction, and the November 1977 release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind brought awareness of Devils Tower, which was the nation's first national monument before it became a location of fictional extraterrestrials, to a new generation. The first Star Trek movie was released in 1979.

"I think Star Trek was a worthy example of where things will be going," Cunningham said. "That ties right into the literature and writing. I feel sorry for kids who don't know Arthur C. Clarke as an author."

(Clarke's 1948 short story The Sentinel was used as the basis for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Clarke also authored numerous other science fiction novels and short stories. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick co-wrote the film version, and Clarke also turned 2001: A Space Odyssey into a novel published that year. Clarke also authored several non-fiction publications on space travel. His short story called A Stroke of the Sun when published in a 1958 edition of the science fiction magazine Galaxy and A Slight Case of Sunstroke when included in a 1962 book of Clarke's short stories is the account of an American intelligence agent who witnesses a South American soccer referee being vaporized by souvenir programs with reflective covers.)

"This is stuff I get very excited about," Cunningham said of interdisciplinary studies. "I think that most schools should be considering that."