June 10, 2019
By: Erin Leydon
Before today, we had each biked about 500 miles, but we still hadn’t taught a single learning festival, which is the entire point of our trip, so we were all anxiously awaiting our first opportunity to teach. This opportunity appeared in Hazard, KY at the Challenger Learning Center, which is one place that last year’s team had enjoyed so much, they told us that we absolutely could not go elsewhere.
This morning, we woke up bright and early to get ready for our workshops. I was pretty nervous, as this was our first time actually doing the workshops for the kids we are trying to reach. What if the kids are uninterested in our demonstrations and experiments? What if we mess up the experiments and they don’t work? What if our workshop takes up less time than we thought it would, and we’re left trying to entertain a group of kids until it’s time to take them to the next workshop? These were all things that I couldn’t help but consider as I got ready for the day.
Our host, Sherry Spradlin, is the owner of the Harmony House Bed and Breakfast in Hazard, KY. Once we were all dressed, we ate a delicious breakfast that Sherry had made. (Side note: Sherry is absolutely fantastic, and staying at the Harmony House was amazing. She really went above and beyond to make sure that we had everything we needed, and we all really appreciate everything she did for us.) After breakfast, we loaded up the car and Caralyn and I drove over to the Challenger Learning Center while the rest of the team biked over.
Once we arrived, I was immediately amazed by the Challenger Learning Center. They had a ton of interactive exhibits, even a flight simulator, about everything from physics to planetary science. I could imagine myself as a little kid being absolutely thrilled to be there and learn more about exciting topics in STEM. After I tore myself away from these exhibits, we started setting up our workshops. We decided that Devin and I would teach our workshops tomorrow for all of the students in the morning, and today we would split the students up into three groups, which would rotate through the other three workshops. I ended up sticking with one group as they went through all three workshops, so I got to see all of them in action.
The first workshop was Decoding DNA, taught by Maile and Bill. In this workshop, students extracted the DNA from strawberries and performed gel electrophoresis, to show students how actual scientists work with DNA. My favorite part of this experiment was getting to see the look on the students’ faces when clumps of DNA first appeared from the squished strawberries.
The next workshop was Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, taught by Edgardo and Evan. Edgardo started off the workshop by discussing neuroscience, and then doing a demonstration where one person flexed a muscle in their arm, and a series of wires and electronic components passed the signal into Edgardo’s arm, causing him to involuntarily close his hand. Evan then taught about artificial intelligence and led an activity that involved the students entering a list of nice things and mean things into a computer to train it to recognize nice and mean statements. My favorite one of these statements was a mean one, “So long, froggy.”
The final workshop was Rapid Prototyping, taught by Leah and Caralyn. This workshop involved a series of brainstorming activities, followed by the opportunity to actually build one of the ideas using craft supplies. My group ended up building a carnival game that involved using a slingshot to propel a ping pong ball through a series of hoops. It was pretty fun in my totally unbiased opinion.
The students in each of the workshops were so fun to work with as well. They were excited about each workshop and gave very insightful ideas when asked for input. It was very rewarding to hear at the end of the day that the students had really enjoyed the workshops. It made me feel like we might actually be helping get these kids interesting in pursuing a career in STEM, which is our whole goal of this trip.
After we cleaned up the workshops and went back to the Harmony House, we were all extremely tired. It gave me a new appreciation for all of my teachers and my parents for entertaining me when I was younger. They must have been so tired. Most of us took naps or read books in the first bit of free time we have seen since Spokes started, which felt amazing. It’s very rare on a trip like this that you can ask yourself what needs to be done, and the answer is nothing.
Although I am still nervous about teaching my own workshop tomorrow, I’m a lot more excited about it now after working with the students all day. By this time tomorrow, we will have finished teaching our first learning festival, and I’m pretty excited about that. Anyways, I should be heading to sleep soon to make sure I am well rested for the workshop tomorrow. Thanks for reading!