Livingston Teacher Develops Free Lesson Plan: Solar-Power Lantern

LIVINGSTON, NJ — Veteran Livingston teacher Srividhya Sundaram doesn’t dumb it down when it comes to furthering her students’ STEM education.

Case in point, when the science department chair at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy was recently tasked with creating a sharable project for the “Science Friday Educator Collaborative,” a baking soda and vinegar volcano wasn’t going to cut the mustard.

For grades 6 to 8, Srividhya developed a project where students break apart and study circuits of inexpensive solar-powered toys and lanterns, then reverse-engineer a lantern that turns on and off by simple motions of the user. Students optimize their design for use by communities without reliable access to electricity. (Learn more about the project and see lesson plans here)

Srividhya was one of eight individuals selected from hundreds of applicants around the country to partner with the Science Friday project to develop resources for educators and parents around the world to use in their classrooms and homes. Like all resources shared at Science Friday, the solar-powered lantern project is free and don’t require expensive materials to implement.

Srividhya has a bachelor’s degree in science and a master’s degree in educational leadership. She later joined NASA’s Endeavor program and was certified by NASA as STEM Teacher Leader. She won the Jerry Gottesman Award for Teaching Excellence, Professional Learning, and Community Collaboration in 2017.

Science Friday just opened applications for its 2019 roster of Educator Collaborators, which you can find here.

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