Category: Kenan Fellowship

Fellowship in Action

This month has been very busy with putting all I learned into action. In my classroom my students have been learning the basics of electricity with snap circuits and squishy circuits. We also have been utilizing many lab books I have on electricity and other materials Dr. Jur and the ASSIST Center purchased for us. After the students finish learning the basics we will move on to a utilizing sensors and building a wearable device.

I was able to find a volunteer, Kelli Whelan, an Environmental Engineering Doctoral Student who comes weekly to our classes to teach the students more about pollution. This is a nice treat and the students are learning lots about pollution.

We went on a wonderful field trip this month to the Hunt Library, where we had a tour of the robot, technologies and library. We then went to the Textile Department and students saw how cloth, thread and clothes were made. Next we headed to the ASSIST Center, where students learned about nanotechnology and wearable devices and completed an engineering challenge. We ended the field trip with a visit to the solar house and learning how all its technologies worked. The students really enjoyed the field trips and learned lots. The Field Trip was sponsored by ATT Pioneers so the students could attend free, since 90% of my students qualify for Free/Reduced lunch rate and all could attend.

We have two other field trips planned this year to: National Institute of Environmental Health where students will learn about environmental research and nanotechnology. In addition we will also participate in a Tech Expo in the spring.

My students will participate in One World One Health Conference and we have found a school to partner with in Monrovia Liberia. Students will develop a wearable device to help these students in this area which will help solve an environmental/health issue. We will utilize Google Docs and we are excited for the students to also learn more about life in Africa. I am excited that my students who have disabilities also learn they have much to give and can help “save the world”.

I also plan to have the ASSIST Center Staff work with my high school students in Catalyst: Creating Opportunities in STEM for Students with Disabilities. They will come to some of our Saturday Sessions to teach the kids about nanotechnology, wearable devices and careers.

I am really grateful to all the opportunities this Fellowship has given me to increase my knowledge and teaching skills. I am daily utilizing what I learned to help my students.

I am excited to share all I learned with others to improve their skill set and students knowledge, in the upcoming conferences which I am presenting: Bridging the Gap and NSTA Conference in Philadelphia. I also will be having Dr. Merrill, WCPSS Superintendent visit my classroom next week and see all the kids have learned from my Kenan Fellowship. I am also trying to change educational policy and all I learned through my Fellowship by: the article I published in EdNC, talking to central office staff at WCPSS, as part of NSTA Special Education Advisory Board and also as part of NC Science Leadership Association. I continue to grow and learn from the Kenan Fellowship daily and look forward to our upcoming PD.

How the Kenan Fellowship Will Change Me as a Teacher

The Kenan Fellowship has given me new inspiration to work harder and that we can make a difference! It was so wonderful to be in the room with educators that still love teaching and have so many great ideas that have led to positive changes in their students. This has inspired me all over again to work harder and do more for the kids. I also learned more ideas I plan to use in the classroom from; a new lab template format to websites. These ideas will help me provide high quality instruction to my students. I plan to add more Engineering Design Process to my labs which I think will be a great benefit to my students. It also has inspired me to keep on learning and seek out more PD opportunities so I can learn more science content, technologies and educational tools to continually improve as an educator. I also plan to incorporate more real world jobs in each unit not just real world examples to help students see the connection to what they are learning to future opportunities. I have so many ideas I plan to add to my classroom. I developed two units which have 7 lesson plans on Wearable Technologies which I plan to use in my classroom. I also plan to have Dr. Jur visit our classroom, plan a field trip to NCSU and EPA. My students will participate in the One World One Health Competition too. The Kenan Fellows has become my new Team to help me throughout the year with ideas and support. I think the changes will be great and I look forward to utilizing all I learned throughout the year.

How My Internship Experience Can Benefit ASSIST Center

There are several ways my internship can benefit the ASSIST Center. First, I am preparing the next generation of scientists. Teaching my students about nanotechnology, new sensors and technology, coding, mind mapping, the engineering design process and all the other skills I have learned, I am better preparing them for a career and research in STEM. These activities are also very engaging and can encourage students to learn more in STEM and consider STEM Careers. This can help create a larger workforce in STEM which we need in USA and more researchers in this topic which many of my student are not aware of. For Example most of my students do not know what Textile Engineers do, how wearable devices work etc..

I also preparing next generations of citizens who will be the policy makers, voters, corporate work force etc.. that will have to make many decision concerning; the environment, government policies, products to market etc.. and this will give them more background knowledge to understand environmental issues, technologies, the interconnectedness of people and animals to help the students make better decisions in the future and also wanting tolearn. Examples include; funding to scientists, product development, global warming policies and other topics.

This will also help my students see the roadblocks to the current technologies and areas to research in the future and maybe they can problem solve the issue. My students are very creative out of the box thinkers and with good content knowledge they will hopefully be able to problem solve and create new technologies in the future.

This also will help in general the community because the more education and skills my students receive the better futures and economic conditions they will live in and creating a stronger community. The more career opportunities and skills sets I can teach my students, the more likely this will happen. Stronger communities can also help create; a large tax base, funding, active voters and also can help them be aware as consumers what products can benefit them, like many of the wearable devices.

I will also be presenting at two conferences this year and hopefully more next year, this will allow more teachers to be educated on this topic and teach their students and also utilize the website and learn what the ASSIST Center does.

My students will have another Museum Exhibit this year. Last year we taught over 5000 people about the Microbiome. This year we will have an exhibit on Wearable Devices and educate the public in this area.

Last year we completed a project on Water Usage in Products with a school in Singapore. Next year I hope to find another school in the world to work on Wearable Device Project, this will help the ASSIST Center to research places internationally too.

Indirectly I am helping the ASSIST Center, because by teaching me, the staff at the ASSIST Center is learning how to communicate with the public better and make science accessible to all, since I have limited background on this topic too. I also am creating lesson plans that will help make the concepts we learn more accessible and teachable by teachers in middle school and also with students with disabilities.

It is hard to qualify all the impacts I can make through this Internship that will benefit the ASSIST Center, but in summary it will be: creating a better; STEM Workforce, future citizens both in government and industry for policy and decision making, spread the knowledge of the ASSIST Center through PLTS, Conferences, Museum Exhibits and Global Projects with other schools. I know I have greatly been impacted by my internship and I hope I can do a small part by benefiting the ASSIST Center too

Goals of My Internships

The Goals of my internship are as follows:

● Apply understanding of sensing technologies & system design toward the

fabrication of a One Health inspired wearable sensor system.

● Develop educational lessons with focus on one or more of the following:

one health, energy harvesting, sensing, system design, e‐textiles,

nanotechnology, and/or engineering design/prototyping.

Ex: Lesson Plan (1)* ‐ One Health wearable sensor

Lesson Plan (2) ‐ Engineering Design process

Lesson Plan (3) ‐ Energy Harvesting Demonstration

* Required, developed as a web page.

● Create infrastructure around One Health Competition to allow for staged

growth & program sustainability.

Keys to success:

● Allow for suitable time for lesson plan development

● Focus topic – (i.e. One Health)

● Sub‐groups/teams

● Ideation

● Hands on prototyping

● Think big & have confidence your success

● Have fun & be creative!

● Apply understanding of sensing technologies & system design toward the

fabrication of a One Health inspired wearable sensor system.

We have had exposure to wearable devices and systems through guest speakers, visiting labs and utilizing the technologies ourselves. This will help me prepare to teach the usage of these technologies to my students. I want my students to learn use these sensors. I will be concentrating first in my class on the Lily Pad and TI Sensors. I now understand how they work and what resources I can use to help me learn more in using them. I also understand the scope of wearable devices that have been created and some road blocks they face during development. I want to use this teach my students how technologies are developed and improved but also give them background knowledge of the current technologies. I also want to teach the students how to code and use the Lily Pads to create their own wearable devices. I also plan to have students meet people from the field through field trips and also guest speakers. I want the students to learn how research is done and improved and learn to be researchers themselves. This has also helped me become a better educator since I did not know before this Fellowship how to use these sensors and technologies.

We learned about the following technologies; wearable medical sensors, i.e. for EKG’s:

Wearable Gas Sensors, i.e. for Ozone Gas Detection:

To Wearable Sensors that Harvest Energy from Motion:

To Soldering and making circuits;

We also learned about the Engineering Design Process and how we should utilize this in making our wearable device. I want to use the Engineering Design Process for some projects we will complete in class. I like the process for also teaching my students it takes many attempts at design and improvement before a devices can be used. We learned some of the technologies we learned about are still 1-3 years from being marketed and are continually improved. We learned that the ASSIST Goals are not only to make wearable devices but to reduce energy needed for the devices to work and hopefully in the future make them self powered through energy harvesting. I want my students when designing the system to think of all the components too.

We also learned about mind mapping and how to consider all the parts of a system and options we can have when deciding problem, scope of the problem, current technology available, user, sensor, form factor, alert, and how this relates to One World One Health :

Our sensor called: “Hot Stuff” was developed with a great team including Esta Lampkin and Ursela Jones. We first used mind mapping to discuss what problem we want to solve. This process helped us come to one common issue. Our issue was the effects of heat on body systems in both humans and animals. We discussed what the issue was, who was effected, the scope of the problem and user, sensor, form factor and alert. We did discuss making a collar for polar bears to track heat levels they are exposed to but we did not have tracking possibilities with the sensors we have and decided to focus on a human. This process will help me teach the students how Mind Mapping can help before the Engineering Design Process is started.

Develop educational lessons with focus on one or more of the following:

one health, energy harvesting, sensing, system design, e‐textiles,

nanotechnology, and/or engineering design/prototyping.

Ex: Lesson Plan (1)* ‐ One Health wearable sensor

Lesson Plan (2) ‐ Engineering Design process

Lesson Plan (3) ‐ Energy Harvesting Demonstration

I plan to write the three lesson plans which I will utilize in my classroom. The Wearable Sensor will be based on our project “Hot Stuff”, which helps warn a person if they are getting to hot to prevent heat stroke by making a sensor that detects a human’s body temperature and also tracks the ambient air temperature. The Sensor will either vibrate, make a sound or give off lights as an alert if the person’s body temperature increases to much which can lead to heat stroke and also acerbate existing health issues i.e. increase seizures in people with epilepsy.

This will work well with curriculum goals in Grade 6 of Weather and Effects, Grade 7 of Body Systems, and Grade 8 Environment and Chemistry. I plan to use the Lilly Pad and teach the students coding too. The next lesson plan on Engineering Design will focus on how Engineering Design works and how students can first use come up with a concept for solving an issue, then make a Mind Map and then determine the user, sensor, form factor and alert, then go forth with the Engineering Design Project using the sensors we have. I wanted to implement more projects with Engineering Design in mind, not just the Scientific Method. This process will help me do this. Energy is a big topic in Grades 6 and 8 so teaching about Energy Harvesting and ways to reduce energy needs of a system will fit will in the curriculum. I plan to teach about using motion to make energy and also ways to reduce energy consumption within a system.These lesson plans I also plan to share with other educators in PLTs and Conferences and on NSTA Website. This will help others learn about these technologies and concepts.

Apply understanding of sensing technologies & system design toward the

fabrication of a One Health inspired wearable sensor system.

Students will develop their own wearable device. This will help with my work in having my students be leaders and learners of science. I will have the students showcase their work to other students and the public. This will help them be the ones that shine and help the public see students with disabilities as science leaders and educators. This also will help them learn about career paths in the future they might want to study as they become engaged in this topic. My goals as an educator the teaches high quality STEM, applied science and technologies that helps students not only increase their knowledge but also utilize their knowledge to improve their future by careers and their community by helping solve problems and issues. It also is important for teaching life skills such as learning perseverance, using their skills to help others, and learn about the interconnectedness of the environment, animals and people in One World One Health.

Create infrastructure around One Health Competition to allow for staged

growth & program sustainability.

This year I plan to start team for the One Health Competition so students can develop their wearable devices and solve a current issue. This also will expose them to what other students in the state are doing to solve problems. I want in the future to add this to our Global Projects. Last year we did a water project with a school in Singapore. I would like in the future to do a Wearable Device Project with students from another county. This helps our students learn more about their world which is important. Many of my students have not even been to the beach so exposure to students in other countries has allowed them not only to learn science but about other cultures and countries. I want my students to see value to their work and this competition will help them do so and help us understand how to do this before we work with another school globally on a project.

My other goal as an educator is to involve the parents and community. My students can do this by teaching the community in events such as our science fair or museum exhibit. In addition this lets them shine and having students and the community as viewing them as community contributors and leaders. I also plan to add an inquiry bags on this topic as part of my Zach Packs ( Inquiry bags I made on 40+ Common Core Topics for students to complete labs and activities at home) so students can also work at home on this. This helps put science at home and parents involved in their child’s learning.

I see this Fellowship very related to my work as an educator and growing daily in terms of the impact it will make on me and my students. I see this as a continual process as I am continually learning and using the knowledge and new skill sets to improve learning and futures of my students.

About My Fellowship and with Dr. Jur in the NCSU ASSIST Center

This was my beginning week as a Kenan Fellow with Dr. Jur, in the picture below. I am thoroughly enjoying the learning I am doing and the exposure to all the new technologies and excited for the new opportunities I can create for my students in my classes, clubs and Catalyst Program. Dr. Jur made me feel right at home and is always very helpful in explaining information to us and an answering any questions. This has put me right at ease since I am unfamiliar with many of the technologies we are using. His support makes me feel, I can be successful in learning and teaching these technologies and processes to my students. Every day has been exciting learning new things, and I am enjoying learning again and being a student. It also has helped me understand more how my students “feel” when learning new things they may or may not have background knowledge in. I am also working with a wonderful Kenan Team, Ursela Jones and Esta Lampkin to create our project.Before I talk more about the Fellowship I will give you some background information about myself and my journey here. I teach at Dillard Drive Middle School. I teach Grades 6,7 and 8 Science and Co Teach Grades 7 and 8 Math. I just completed my fifth year of teaching. I am certified in Special Education Grades K-12, Science Middle School, Science High School and Middle School Language Arts. I teach both students on grade level and those below in both the ICR and Resource setting.

In addition I also organize and run two clubs, Science Explorers, where last year I had 50 students attend weekly, in Grades 6,7 and 8 where a guest Scientist comes from either universities such as; Duke, UNC, Wake Tech and NCSU or industry or government and teaches the students about the STEM Field and we complete hands on activities. This Club works well in exposing students to different STEM content, fields and future careers. I also run in the Spring a Citizen Science Club with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science where I take 15 students to work on Citizen Science Projects weekly to Prairie Ridge and have the students participate in Citizen Science Projects and learn field research skills.

I am on the National Science Teacher’s Special Education Advisory Board where we work to improve science education for students with disabilities nationally. This year I wrote and received a grant from Biogen Foundation to start a new program at NC Science House called: Catalyst: Creating Opportunities in STEM for Students with Disabilities. This Program consists of a week long summer program and 8 monthly Saturday Sessions during the school year. It was done in partnership with NCSU, Wake Technical College, Triangle 2020, The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science. We just completed our week long session which was a pilot program we hope to expand and continue next summer. We had 10 high school students both in the OCS and Regular Education Setting from 9 High Schools in Wake County and New Bern, NC. The week was a success and students.

I became a Kenan Fellow to improve both my content knowledge, skills, learn about cutting edge research and STEM Careers, so I can better teach and prepare my students for their futures. I was very interested to learn about Wearable Devices, Nanotechnology and it’s applications. I also wanted to learn how to use various sensors and how to code so I can uses these in my classroom. There are so many applications in all the areas I work in daily.

I feel this journey began before school ended when I did a two week unit on Nanotechnology with my students in Grade 6,7 8 Science Classes. We learned what is nanotechnology and about its many applications from Thin Films to Cross Linked Polymers to One World One Health. I think this unit which is on my Blog gave me and my students a platform which to start from. I teach the same students yearly until they move on to high school so in the Fall we will not start from scratch.

A week before the Fellowship started I directed a week long summer program for students participating in Catalyst: Creating Opportunities in STEM for Students with Disabilities. This is a new pilot program I started at NC Science House with a wonderful team, to give more supports for high school students with disabilities in STEM so they can learn STEM Content, Skills and Educational Pathways for STEM Careers. This week included many of the skill sets or topics I have used this week in my Fellowship, from students learning about: animal science and health with chickens , human health with labs, technologies with 3D Printers Work and Coding Raspberry Pi’s , Citizen Science, labs, to One World One Health, in the pictures below. In addition Catalyst Program taught students not only STEM Content and skills but about educational pathways in STEM from certificates to PhD’s and future careers in STEM. This Program will also have 8 monthly Saturday Sessions during the school year.

I plan to utilize what I learn in all these settings. I want to teach my students about the technologies I have learned from Lilly Pads to TI Sensors and how to use them. I want them to learn about the Engineering Design Process, which I want to implement more in my classroom. I also want them to learn more thinking processes such as Mind Mapping and Ideation of ideas to solve problems with technologies. I want them to learn about the various careers in this field and how they might match their strengths to work in these fields. I hope I will support them better to learn these technologies since I am new to them too, I understand better, what background knowledge they need to succeed and also I will make them comfortable in trying them out.

I also hope to increase their understanding of One World One Health and how we are interconnected with the environment which is becoming harder to teach since many of my students do not “go out” much but are on electronics or rarely get into the woods. I hope my students will see themselves as leaders and learners of science and can problem solve. I want them to understand failure in design/science is common but perseverance is what is needed, which is a life long skill. I want them to utilize their strengths to solve problems and not concentrate on their disabilities. Many of my students who have disabilities, do not always see their strengths since they have failed many times and are not always the ones who “shine” in class. I try to change this perception daily may have of them selves and also others have of them too. Some fellow educators I have seen do not expect them to be successful although many of our most famous scientists have had disabilities. Many students with Disabilities are underrepresented in STEM and learning these skills could help them on the pathway to STEM Careers. Also I am a big supporter of having science accessible to all and want my students to be exposed to cutting edge technologies and science as in this Field.

In my clubs, Science Explorers and Citizen Science, I want to students to learn about this Field and Content. May of the students who are in my school come from low income families and have not been exposed to wide range of career options in STEM. Many would not have heard about Textile Engineering, Nanotechnology. I want to have some sessions on this for my club.

I also hope to have a group participate in the Wearable Devices Completion. I think due to transportation issues, I will have this as part of my intervention club which is for one hour weekly. I will model my lessons on the process I completed as part of the Kenan Fellowship at the ASSIST Center.

I am also completing my Environmental Educators Certification. I want to show both my students in the Citizen Science Club and other Environmental Educators how technology, the engineering design process, can help solve environmental problems and how to integrate One World One Health in environmental education programs and opportunities.

I want to have sessions in the monthly Saturday classes for Catalyst on Nanotechnology, Wearable Devices and the Engineering Design Process for students in the program. I think this will enhance their exposure to STEM Content and future careers too.

As part of NSTA Special Education Advisory Board I work on making high quality science accessible to all and also viewing students with disabilities as science leaders and learners. We are working of a Website with links which I hope to share my lesson plans. I also will so far be presenting in the Fall at Bridging the Gap in STEM at NCSU with NCABR and at NSTA Conference in Philadelphia. I plan to use what I learn to teach other educators about this topic and ways to implement it in their classrooms. I hope to present at other conferences and PD’s too. I also plan to share it with teachers in my school.I also will write grants so students can go on Field Trips and get the technologies and materials I need to implement all I learned in the classroom.

As my Blog is called: Small World (of Nanotechnology and also the World is Growing “Smaller” and more interconnected with the Internet and Travel), Big Ideas ( of Wearable Devices, Nanotechnology, Engineering Design, Energy Harvesting and One World One Health) Great Possibilities ( For my learning and improving as a teacher, teaching my students so they learn high quality STEM, Science and Life Skills and have a great future and improving our Community and world by application of technologies and STEM), this Fellowship will impact all these areas.

Highlights of NCCAT

NCCAT can best be summarized by our rafting trip: have fun, learn lots and work as a team. I really enjoyed NCCAT and getting to know the other Kenan Fellows. It was a pleasure to be with very bright teachers who are innovative and love teaching. I learned so much from these teachers and have many new ideas I want to implement in my classroom. There are so many new things I want to implement but in order not to be overwhelmed I have picked a few to start with.

I plan to make sure I try to get our students to see how things connect cross curriculum. I hope in our PLT’s to implement more cross curriculum ideas. We meet in PLT’s in subject matter and I want to try to see if we can meet as a Team to plan Cross Curriculum. At the very least I will have on my Board cross curriculum material as it relates to the science topic I will be teaching. On my board, I list daily, What students know ( real world examples), What we will Do ( topic we will learn), List of what we will do, the classroom plan, What they will know by the End of Class (assessment) and Homework. After the first few weeks, students also help in finding real world examples relating to the curriculum. I will have them do this with Cross Curriculum Material. I already try to incorporate cross curriculum materials in my class in Math and Language Arts since I teach or taught them before. I think it is important for absorption of materials and seeing topics in broader context, that we reinforce them Cross Curriculum when possible.

I also hope to do more in Informatics. Many of my students are visual learners and by having them use infogr.am or other websites this will help them learn to display their data and also make data more meaningful to them and others who view their results.

I also liked the concept of Edcamp. So many times PD is not what we need at the time and also we never have time to talk with the many experts we have within the building to solve issue or enhance the education of our students. I hope we will can implement this in our school one day. This also would help with team building of our staff.

Surprising my least favorite session was the one on Parent/Community support. This was surprising since I am a big supporter of parent education and community involvement. I ran a Community In Schools Program for five years in a high needs school. I had many parent education classes from ESL to how to help their children with school and had a weekly resource newsletter, ran clubs at schools, connected many parents to resources etc… I think first the speaker who started by insulting NCCAT did not sit well with me. I felt we were treated so well and although she kept complaining about having no TV and the food, maybe she was used to higher “living”, we were all happy and grateful. I also did not like that one speaker was late so the other speaker to fill time, spoke for 30 minutes about what food she liked in LA. She should have had a backup plan if the other speaker was late and more skills she could teach us. There were many topics they did not cover with concrete ideas to help build parent support in our schools.

I think NCCAT was a great way to start the Fellowship. It gave us many ideas and started the team building process. It also energized me to get ready to work hard. We finished school on Thursday, I worked on Friday and the following week on a new summer program at Science House, then went to NCCAT without a break from our busy school year. NCCAT was a way to; enjoy, team build, learn from others, learn new skills and continue the journey of the Kenan Fellowship without the raft but with the supports we need.