The end of the internship has arrived and I am sad to say goodbye to my new friends at Underwriters Laboratories (UL). The people I have met are all so impressive. I think one of the most important observations made during my time at UL was their passion for the greater good and ensuring a safer world. The UL employees I have met are so focused on making sure the products they test are safe. When I compare their passion for safe products to my passion for teaching it tells me we are all in the right profession.
It is going to be exciting to see the changes that I predict will happen in my classroom when I introduce the engineering challenges this year. My classroom theme this year will be “Underwood Laboratories”, and we will create standards as a class for safety, behavior, our economy and our academic endeavors. Allowing my students an opportunity to be inquisitive problem solvers will appeal to so many of the Underwood children. The children, who struggle with being confined by rules and a specific method to solve a problem, will enjoy the open ended structure of an engineering challenge. Working like the engineers of UL the students will think about the impact their creation may have and troubleshoot some of the safety challenges their designs may have.
Last week I was able to host a teacher tour of UL. A few of our Underwood teachers were able to make it out to RTP to see the interesting tests that were going on at UL that day. I think one of the highlights of the visit was learning about the physics encased in safety helmets, eye wear, and boots. We got to see the sophisticated equipment that allows them to perform the impact test of helmets. The helmet had sensors placed inside and then various anvils were dropped from a prescribed height onto the helmet. The sensor inside the helmet would measure the amount of impact the firefighters head would feel. We also saw them shoot a pellet at a pair of safety glasses, the pellet bounced off the lens, and then he put a pair of reading glasses in the device and shot a pellet at the lens, the glass shattered; it was very dramatic, and was a great visual for why you should wear safety glasses to cut the lawn. The Underwood teachers, who got to tour UL, are also very excited to share what they learned about safety.
