Only Three More Months

When I first arrived in Washington, DC to start my time as an Einstein Fellow, I felt this urgency to take in and experience as much as the city and the fellowship has to offer.  By the end of December, the urgency started to fade and seemed to coincide with winter weather that made it more pleasurable to remain indoors.  Now that there are only three months left to my fellowship and the weather has taken a decidedly spring if not summer turn, the urgency to go forth and take in all I can is back in full force.





I know I will not ever feel as though I have seen it all or done it all, but I am trying to take in more panel sessions and DC experiences.  I also have plans to take some personal time to travel a bit around the northeast, making my way up to Maine and out to the Atlantic Ocean.  And yet, with all the amazing events to attend and places to see, I am still trying to enjoy the beauty of the day-to-day living and working in the capital.  I used to worry about looking like a tourist by taking pictures around DC, but I am a tourist and don't want to miss the opportunity to record this fantastic experience.

















I am excited about the upcoming opportunity to put new skills and resources into practice in the classroom. In addition, I will be pursuing ways in which to share the STEM knowledge I have developed over the course of my time as a K-5 engineering teacher, an Einstein Fellow at the Library of Congress, and integrating all of those experiences into an engaging learning experience for students in my classroom.

NAVSEA Calculator Robots and More

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit NAVSEA Carderock division.  This division is mainly civilian engineers working on research, development, test and evaluation, fleet support, an in-service engineering for surface and undersea vehicles.  In order to conduct much of this work, the testing systems areas were amazing to see and a fantastic maker lab is available to staff and for training and research purposes. NASA has shared about the challenges with 3D printing in microgravity, but have you ever considered the challenges with printing on a ship with rolling seas?  Apparently, 3D printers can be of use when out in the middle of the ocean, but may not function so well while in that location.  While this could be an interesting challenge for students to ponder, NAVSEA Carderock offers K-16 STEM Outreach.  Another opportunity that was shared was the use of TI-84 calculators for robots.  NASA has an educator guide for using the robots with 6-9 grades but I think it would be amazing to use the calculator robots with elementary students and get them familiar with the graphing calculator and practice with computational thinking.

Sorry, no pictures were allowed at Carderock.