My internship experience was spent with some phenomenal teachers and two great mentors. Jess and Elena made sure our summer was full of learning, idealizing, and hands-on learning. When I started the intern, I did not know it was going to expose me to the different parts of engineering, text tiles, prototypes, programming, and new health initiatives. I toured a total of 10 facilities, created three lesson plans, participated in the ASSIST symposium, and gained some COOL resources to take back to my classroom.

If I had to identify a challenge this summer, it would be working on a team prototype and being able to further incorporate some of my summer learning into my classroom. Working in teams can be very productive, as long as all team members respect each other’s attributes and remember to incorporate all team members in the production process. I also had difficulty with learning how to use the Aurdino LilyPad. I took one programming course in college and this was my first time seeing it since 2002. I do plan on extending my understanding and presenting a lesson to my classes with the LilyPad. Stay turned for a lesson presentation update.

My mentors were by far the coolest instructors to work with. At all times I felt like I was surrounded by beauty and brains. Jess Jur and Elena Veety made sure we learned, was fed, and answered any questions that loomed our day. The next step to my relationship with my intern comes from my classroom visits. My mentors are set to visit my class this fall to meet my students and extend on our experience. Jess and Elena taught me so MUCH in 5 weeks of visiting them now I have to take my learning back to my students.

One cool mission I plan to embark on this school year will be the One Health Initiative challenge with my students. My vision is to teach the lessons created this summer by all of my fellow teachers to my 7^th grade elective class. I would like for my elective theme to be Nanotechnology and OneHealth. I will have everything I need at my finger tips as all lessons can be found on the ASSIST One Health website. Please come back in the late fall to read about my journey with my students, Jess, and Elena.

As of today my Kenan Fellow peers have individually completed AT LEAST 30 hours of curriculum building. The lessons seem to range in subject areas, grades, and STEM approaches. I personally have created three lesson plans over the past three weeks. It is pretty amazing how much the human mind can gather when it is time to produce polished products to add to resources libraries. All of my lessons were a stretch for me as I am a math teacher and I wanted to make sure I did not lose my subject area while planning.

Lesson one will focus on the one health initiative and the heat exposure on the human body. Students are to plan a family picnic and decide which location will give family members a “cooler” experience. Students are in charge of using the TI Sensortag to collect different heat and sun reading in the surrounding areas of their school building. Once the data is collected, a presentation on the best picnic location is presented to the class.

Lesson two will focus on the engineering design process in math. Students will use the LittleBits circuits to test the pressure needed to activate an output module. Students will use quarters and half dollars to create the pressure needed to activate the buzzer, fan, bargraph, and vibrator modules. Students are tying in math with exploring proportions and ratios of weights of quarters and half dollars.

The third lesson was an energy harvesting presentation. Super Solar Recycle is an excellent way to have students pick up the empty water bottle or soda can. Solar Robots are using the recyclables to entertain children of all sizes.

In theory, the lessons were exciting to create BUT once my fingers hit the keyboard, time and patience sat in for long hours of planning. Some successes of the lesson writing experience comes from the lessons I have access to once my fellows are all published. The most amazing success from lesson planning was using the TI Sensortag and LittleBits circuits. The only obstacle of presenting my lessons will be getting enough of the Sensortags and LittleBits to conduct the lesson. As long as I have 8 of each which will allow my students to work in groups. The only and BIGGEST challenge I found from lesson planning was my inability to make my lessons as rigorous as I wanted and having enough time to gather my thoughts and get them into the template. In all, I am done with my drafts and now the fun time of the chop and edits can begin!

I have spent the past five weeks in ah with the amount of information, knowledge, and experience my mentor has shared with the Kenan Fellows. I had the privilege to visit over 10 organizations and labs with exposure to the world of textiles, engineering, nanotechnology, prototyping, and the beautiful Hunt Library. It is so easy to reflect on my experience with the ASSIST center but in this reflection I am going to share how my experience will benefit Dr. Jur’s vision and mission.

Dr. Jur has shared several of the ASSIST’s goals with his mentees. I have taken the ASSIST vision and mission from the website, as one can see it will be quite difficult to paraphrase the in-depth vision and mission statements.

The NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center (NERC) for Advanced Self-               Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST) develops and employs nano-enabled energy harvesting, energy storage, nanodevices and sensors to create innovative battery-free, body-powered, and wearable health monitoring systems.

VISION

We envision a paradigm shift in health informatics enabled by wearable nanotechnologies that monitor individual health parameters and environmental exposures. Long-term sensing will enable patients, doctors, and scientists to make direct correlations between health and environmental toxins leading to chronic disease prediction, management and treatment. ASSIST advances will accelerate environmental health research and clinical trials as well as inform environmental policy.

MISSION

Use nanotechnology to improve global health by enabling correlation between personal health and personal environment and by empowering patients and doctors to manage wellness and improve quality of life.

I have used the past five weeks and will continue on into the school year exploring and teaching my students about global health and improving our quality of life. This week I have completed two lesson plans that are now branded ASSIST. Dr. Jur will add these lesson plans and demonstrations to the center’s resources to aid in teaching others about sensors, prototyping, LittleBits, and energy harvesting solutions. The second way my internship will benefit the ASSIST center will come in conveying and sharing the ASSIST vision/mission with my students and their families. I will take my lessons into my classroom and share the following objectives with my students.

Once students complete lesson 1 on one health and the TI sensortag:

• Students will be able to evaluate the properties of colors and materials as measured by illuminance as well as temperature.
• Informally assess the degree of visual overlap of two numerical data distributions with similar variabilities, measuring the difference between the centers by expressing it as a multiple of a measure of variability.

Once students complete lesson 2 on LittleBits and proportions:

• Students will use a variety of tools to solve real world mathematical problems with positive rational numbers in any form.

• Students will students explore the concept of a ratio, make tables of equivalent ratios, and solve unit problems.

• Students will develop a model using LittleBits to generate data for iterative testing

My goals as a Kenan Fellow may change several times before I see my vision taking shape. I am a very motivated teacher who wants to take all of my professional development with Dr. Jur and turn it into the coolest hands on learning for my students.

I would love for my students to experience the engineering design process in the middle of my math curriculum. My goals will consist of introducing my students to the one health initiative and motivating them to explore through exposure to the TI sensortag. I would love for my students to create a device with a prototype that can improve the health of humans. I will have to provide a rubric, boundaries, and goals of the lesson.

But by the end of the school year, my vision will have students post their projects/prototypes to their digital portfolios.