It has taken some time for me to digest everything that has happened with Kenan Fellows and Students Discover. After marinating/reflecting on my time at the museum I have been able to put it all into perspective…sort of…not really. How do you put an experience that was so monumentally life-changing into a perspective that makes sense? My attempt is below.

When starting my internship at the NC Museum of Natural Science I had no idea that I would gain a new mindset on teaching. On day one at the museum we sat down and discussed expectations and goals for the experience and by day two we had basically learned everything we would be doing in our classrooms. To be in an internship that lasts for three weeks, and to have basically learned the protocol that we will be implementing in our classrooms by the end of day two leaves a lot of room for uneasiness. I remember wondering what we were going to do next if we had already learned everything we needed to know. As a Type A personality I like for things to be planned and prepared for, and while they were, I did not immediately see the vision. Julia was unbelievably patient with the entire process and was very honest when even she did not fully understand what the outcome would look like. Her plan to teach us the details of what we would be implementing in our classrooms at the beginning of the internship was brilliant because it allowed us to marinate on everything we learned and how it would look in our schools for the remaining time at the museum. We were able to contribute our own ideas to the project because she provided us with the essential background knowledge and skill set on day one. This gave us time to help Julia with the research she  wanted to tackle while we were there and we even had time to spend with Dr. Julie Urban who is wonderful! I had no idea how big a role microbiology plays in so many aspects of our world. The most exciting part of this experience has been realizing just how accessible microbiology can be to kids and how advantageous this project is going to be for my students. They are going to go to high school knowing how to collect samples, prepare samples, plate samples, how to make agar, pour agar, pipette, spread a sample, grow a sample, analyze a sample, and report findings back to a scientist who really cares about the bacteria the weeds are recruiting in their schoolyard. These are things some college students and college graduates do not know! My 13 year old kids are going to know these things! This is huge! If there were ever a chance for my students to get ahead of the curve this is their chance. This project has empowered me to empower them with these incredible skills and knowledge. Julia is tangible proof that somebody cares about the science they are doing and that their time matters, even as middle school students. This is such a hard concept for kids to grasp because they have a difficult time picturing themselves as scientists. They still picture scientists as old white guys in lab coats holding beakers of green liquid.   They are contributing to our world in such a meaningful way and this internship has opened the door for hundreds of middle school students who, before now, did not even know that door existed. I am so grateful I work in a county where our science support folks encouraged me to apply to the Kenan Fellows Program and I am forever grateful I conveyed my passion for education east of I-95 to Dr. Julie Urban who then took my message back to my wonderful mentor, Dr. Julia Stevens. I am a better teacher because of KFP, Students Discover, and the wonderful folks I worked with in the Genomics and Microbiology lab at NCMNS.