I say ‘first’ because I have actually been on their site a few times in the past couple years. They have been extremely generous in donating funds to the United Way of Franklin County for their teacher grants (I received one back in 2011 for $750 to start my Science Olympiad team). They also hosted an NCABR workshop last summer. I can’t remember the other reasons I have had for visiting, but I know I have gone on at least two facility tours.
Anyways, onto the meat of the meeting.
It was a meeting between myself, my mentor (Arlen) and two folks from their R&D department. We were mostly discussing the scope of the externship and what I will be working on throughout the summer. Here are a few goals we have set:
- Work in the R&D department on their Carbon Capture project.
- Work with some of their educational outreach folks on refining a demo (or set of demos) to be rolled out into Franklin County Schools in the fall.
- Interview folks in different departments and tour the different facilities to get an understanding of the broad range of skills needed for the company to function.
It looks like my start date will be the 16th of June. That is technically a teacher work day here in Franklin County, but it is the day that Novozymes has set for the orientation of their newest intern class and my principal has given me permission to attend. That being said, I won;t actually be on the Novozymes site on the `7th as I will be presenting at the Franklin County Schools Summer Conference on how to use a Science Olympiad team to extend and enrich your science classroom.
Cool! Novozymes seems like such a cool company. I show my students a documentary about biotechnology jobs in NC, and Novozymes is one of the companies featured in the video. I can’t wait to learn more about them by reading your posts! -M.E.