Bringing the E into STEM Education: My Joule Fellowship, Day 1

This summer, I have a unique opportunity.  I am one of a select few teachers that gets to participate in a program from the University of Connecticut, the Joule Fellows program. 

This program was developed by the University of Connecticut School of Engineering to provide secondary education teachers a research experience (a RET, or Research Experience for Teachers) during the summer that introduces them to engineering and allows them to bring this newfound excitement to their students.  Originally a 3-year program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the program originally ran from 2009-2011. 

The organizers were able to extend the program this year with the excess money from the original three-year grant, but only fund six teachers instead of the normal 12.  This program, and ones like it, is why I look forward to summers.  Most people think teachers have their summers off.  Many of the teachers I teach with look at summers this way. 

However, more and more, I am seeing teachers who, like me, are using their summers to improve their teaching skills or work on exciting programs to reinvigorate themselves after a year of ridiculous standardized testing and, in some cases, trying to deal with the politics brought into the educational system...But I digress...

I signed up for the Joule Fellowship program, and its sister program, the weeklong DaVinci Project, to increase my repertoire of teaching strategies and, more importantly, get a fun summer experience.  I cannot take my summer “off” as most people think teachers can.  I was laid off the last day of school and my district notified me in March that I was being laid off for the summer.  No paychecks, no health insurance, nothing. 

Then, on the last day of school, my principal told me that the district was not going to offer me a contract for next year. Luckily, I can get unemployment for the summer and, being well prepared for the political games that public school systems play, I had been searching for a job since I got the layoff notice in March, and found a position as a Math Teacher and Math Learning Skills Teacher at a private school in Hartford. 

So, except for the “no paycheck and health insurance” during the summer, I was all set for their last-minute, “You have no job and good luck finding one three months after all the districts have hired...” message!

I woke up early Monday, despite the long trip my family had taken over the holiday and end of the week last week. I was too excited to sleep!  I got ready, making sure to prepare appropriately according to the lab guidelines that were sent to me (no open-toed shoes/sandals, no shorts, etc.), got gas, and drove the 50 minutes to UConn. 

After paying for a summer parking decal, I parked in the closest lot to the Engineering II Building (I forgot how FAR the student lots are from CIVILIZATION!) and walked to my first meeting - my father who teaches there!  He came in early to meet me, and we walked to my meeting together.

This was the first time I was meeting my fellow Joule Fellows - there are five others here in addition to the head of the program, Aida. 

There are two teachers from the CT Technical School System, two from West Haven High School, one from Glastonbury and, of course, me...We learn about the program and its history - I am amazed at the fact that the NSF couldn’t get enough funding for it this year! 

I may be fiscally conservative, but when it comes to the education of our children, I fully believe in funding programs for our teachers.  For, when you excite a teacher about a subject through one of these programs, the number of students they can “infect” with that excitement is innumerable!  That is why companies like Honeywell fund Honeywell Educators @ Space Academy (Check out my 60 seconds of fame – Making the Grade on WVIT, about my trip to HE@SA)- to touch the lives of uncountable students. 

Unfortunately, the politicization of our education system has prevented funding from finding its way into these programs, especially during times of economic duress when they are most needed!  Districts often cannot fund teacher professional development (or don’t want to) and teachers rely on these programs to reinvigorate themselves and excite their students. 

Also, with the lack of good STEM teachers in the country, and our state, we ESPECIALLY need STEM programs like the Joule Fellowship and the DaVinci Program to bring Engineering into the classroom and to our future scientists, engineers and technologists.  This is why I look for programs like this during the summer, and it is through these programs that I have become the effective teacher I am, one that, I am told, can be creative and excite students to learn topics that would normally be out of reach of them.

The rest of the day was just as amazing as that first meeting.  We got to visit the six labs that we fellows would be working in, and the UConn Center of Clean Energy Engineering (C²E²), as well as see some of the projects they were working on, such as developing cheaper, more effective solar cells, smart electrical grids, battery energy storage systems, and hydrogen fuel cells. 

The end of the day was a presentation on multimedia in education, and we saw how to create effective PowerPoints, podcasts and screencasts for classroom usage (the presenter, Dr. Miller, was HILARIOUS!).

At 4:45, we got to leave for the day.  Tomorrow, we start working with our faculty and Joule Buddies, the graduate students who know more about the research we will be doing.  I will be working with Dr. Sung-Yeul Park on Batter Energy Storage Systems, large banks of batteries that store energy from various sources. 

For example, these arrays can be used to store electricity from solar panels or wind turbines when they are producing electricity.  However, since they are not ALWAYS producing electricity, nor when we need it, these BESS’s can store the excess energy from the renewable sources and put it into the electrical grid when it is most needed, but when the source may not be working (i.e. at night or when the air is still). 

The research I will be working on is monitoring the charge of these batteries to most effectively charge them without damaging the batter or the array.  The science and engineering behind it is quite a bit, but I am really looking forward to giving my brain a good workout!

Until tomorrow...