The first person that I interviewed was a non-ELTer. Joe Conelly, affiliated with the Science, Technology and Society scholars program was presenting his project on wind powered technology. “Here & Back Again: A Historic and Social look of Wind Powered technology & Its Future implications” was what his project was called. In the ten minutes that I spent reading his poster presentation, I learned that wind energy, in the past, played an important role in early human development. Conelly’s claim for this was that before the 20th century, humans used wind to produce mechanical energy. Before the Industrial Revolution, ship’s sails were used to create energy. Uniquely enough, this idea of using wind energy took a hiatus, but is now an up and coming alternative to gather energy in the 21st century.
When interviewing Conelly about the main pitfalls that he faced in his research project, he retorted, “Research!” He then explained that as broad of a subject wind powered technology was; it was hard to cover all the aspects of it inside his presentation. Research was hard for him primarily because there was too much to learn about it that one particular field. Keeping focus in such a broad area can sometimes be troublesome which is why I think he claimed that research was the main obstacle during the development of the project. The major benefit to the project, Conelly stated, was that it allowed him to talk to electrical experts in the field; he got a lot of insight and knowledge from them.
The second person that I interviewed was ELTer, Sean Kelly who also happened to be a Criminal Justice major as well. Sean Kelly was apart of the GEMS program (Girls Excelling in Math and Science). This was a program conducted in Maryland at Hyattsville Middle school. There, Kelley mentored once a week. He explained that the GEMS program was a 2-hour afterschool course that introduced basic math, chemistry, biology and even physics to young girls from the ages of 11-14.
A major benefit in doing this project is that Kelly got to interact with children. He thought it interesting to show them something new and see how they liked it for the first time. One of the major pitfalls that Kelly said that he encountered was trying to plan a field trip to a museum. He said that this was very challenging because he had to construct a lesson plan that included all the key things that the girls were to learn that day.
The last person that I interviewed was Beingwe (Bei) Achu. This ELTer, also affiliated with college of Chemical and Life Sciences and a General Biology student, did her poster presentation on “Home Health Care: The Future of Recuperative Care”. The actual nature of the project was to find out what a nurse participating in Home health care actually does. Like in a hospital, Bei took blood pressure, temperature and recorded down vital statistics.
One of the benefits that Bei mentioned was that the information she was able to obtain while shadowing nurses. She realized that home health care does work and that most of the patients under home health care tend to better than those who are in hospital care. However, one of the pitfalls that Bei encountered when carrying out her research was that she was not a certified nurse. Unfortunately this meant that she was not able to perform all the tasks common to a regular home care nurse. Overall, the academic showcase was a great experience that shed light on the possibilities that Scholar’s program provides for its students.