This is my final blog post after working on my URSA Engage research project for the past 15 weeks. In this post are the links to the folders with all of the lesson plans I created, as well as a final reflection on my experiences.
This project was funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, & the Arts with generous contributions from the College of Engineering and Office of Academic Affairs. I would like to sincerely thank Victor Villegas (OSU extension) for being a fantastic research mentor for me throughout this entire project. I would also like to thank to Dr. Darryl Thomas, Dr. Adam Talamantes, Sharon Sánchez-Aragón, Cyra Sadowl, and Mario Magaña Álvarez for helping me throughout the development of the lesson plans by offering valuable advice and feedback, as well as supporting my professional development as a part of this undergraduate research experience.
Lesson Plans
Below are the links to the folders containing each of the lesson plans that I worked on creating (please feel free to use them):
Physics Behind Flight Lesson: Link
Invent-A-Drone Activity: Link
Drone Dance Lesson: Link
FINAL REFLECTIOn
From February 2022 to June 2022, I participated in the URSA Engage undergraduate research program at Oregon State University (OSU). In this program, I worked with OSU faculty mentor Victor Villegas to do research on creative STEAM outreach activities for students from underserved and underrepresented communities. This project culminated in creating three lesson plans available in English and Spanish that can be used in workshops to teach K-12 students about drones, the arts, and coding.
The arts are very important to develop creativity and soft skills (such as teamwork, problem solving, and divergent thinking) in students that they otherwise would not develop through a curriculum that does not include an emphasis on the arts. I worked with my research mentor to create lesson plans to teach students about drones and coding using creative activities. I created three lesson plans which can be used in series for a workshop or just as standalone lessons. The first lesson plan is a Physics Behind Flight Lesson that teaches students basic flight physics. After the lesson, students create and decorate their own paper airplanes and experiment with modifying the flight surfaces to see how the modifications affect the way the plane flies. The second lesson plan is an Invent-A-Drone Activity where students learn about how drones are used to solve real-life problems and then work in groups to design and build a drone using art supplies to solve a problem of their choice. The third lesson plan is a Drone Dance Activity where students work in groups to code a Tello mini quadcopter to fly in conjunction with music and dance using the DroneBlocks app on an iPad. All of these lesson plans are posted and available on this blog.
Throughout the process of developing these lesson plans, I connected with many professionals through informational interviews. I interviewed people about the work that they do surrounding creative STEAM outreach to students from underserved and underrepresented communities and their experiences with creating curriculum to get feedback on the lesson plans. The help and support from these individuals were invaluable to developing these lesson plans.
This was my first experience doing a project with a mentor, and my mentor was a big help and support. I met with him once a week over Zoom to check in about questions I had and to discuss my progress of the lesson plans I was creating. Aside from providing support, my mentor also pushed me to grow professionally, such as encouraging me to do informational interviews to practice my speaking and interpersonal skills. This mentoring relationship contributed to making this research project a positive experience and helped me grow as I worked on this project.
I was drawn to this research project because it was an applied research project. I did not think I was interested in research initially, and I also do not have any prior experience working in a lab or doing research at the college level, so I took on this project to see if I could develop more interest in research. The project was about incorporating the arts into STEM education for youth from marginalized communities, which is something that I am very passionate about. As a person of color myself, I also desire to champion those in underserved and underrepresented communities. Furthermore, I have always loved doing art and engaging in creative projects. Having experienced a K-12 curriculum in my early education, I believe that more creative activities should be incorporated into K-12 education to make learning more fun and exciting. I am glad that I was able to work on a research project that relates to my interests and allowed me to contribute to causes that I am passionate about. I hope that the lesson plans I created can make a difference. Even though I plan to go into the field of civil engineering, I want to look into ways that I can continue to support creative STEAM outreach efforts in my future.
I presented my project at the Celebrating Undergraduate Excellence (CUE) Research Showcase in May 2022. I created a lightning talk to present to people as they walked by my poster at the showcase, and I also got to walk around and hear about other people’s research projects. This enabled me to be able to practice my presentation skills as well as see what it is like to present at a research showcase. I anticipate I will be presenting my thesis for my honors degree before graduation, so I was glad to be able to have a presentation experience like this as a part of the research project.
This research experience was something very new to me, and I learned so many new things about research. I feel that I grew a lot personally and professionally from this experience, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to be involved with this research!