Category Archives: STEAM education

A tribute to our STEAM education programs

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Tribute

As PN2K moves towards bike safety educational initiatives and programs, we find ourselves moving away from some programs that have been instrumental in our foundational development and will move towards impact in the broader bicycle safety field to align with our greater mission of ensuring that all cyclists, including kids and their families, stay safe on the roads. We have exciting plans underway and have secured funding from the MIT Office of Government and Community Relations for 300 kids' bike safety books and will be starting work with MIT's Daycare Facilities to develop our kids bike safety educational sessions. 

Once upon a time...

...in 2014, we kicked off our collaboration with MIT Amphibious Achievement to inspire high school students to pursue their dreams through STEAM-education, hands-on workshops (STEAM represents "science, technology, education, arts, math"). The structure of these exciting on-site visits to local companies and start-ups for Achievers was created by PN2K as a means to inspire students to pursue higher education and introduce them to potential career paths. 

Guest speakers inspire students with personal stories of how college shaped their career paths and life journeys. A large chunk of time is dedicated to experiential learning (hands-on building and “learning by doing” activities), followed by a quick debrief. 

The four workshops PN2K hosted: 

Laser-cutting

STEAM #1: Danger!Awesome (Apr 5, 2014)

See photos & blog

Rocket-launching

STEAM #2: EcoVent (Mar 3, 2014)

See video & blog

Flying Airplanes

STEAM #3: EcoVent (Nov 22, 2014)

See photos & blog

Glass-blowing

STEAM #4: MIT Glass Lab (Mar 3, 2015)

See video & blog

In May 2014, we also gave out a $500 award to support a high school student in pursuing their life aspirations through higher education - Congratulations Miss Lucie Sanon! The $500 is awarded to an Achiever demonstrating dedication, potential, vigor of character through scholarship and athletics, and commitment. Read more in our blog.

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STEAM #4: Fire & Glass

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What happens when you combine fire, glass, a bunch of curious high school students, Amphibious Achievement, and PN2K? You get an awesome STEAM field trip (#4). For those of you new to the scene, we invite you to read about the history of PN2K's collaboration with Amphibious Achievement to better understand the "youth educational/academia" component to PN2K's mission in our PN2K for Youth page.

May 3rd wrapped up our fourth and final collaborative field trip with Amphibious Achievement for these past two years. Phyo N. Kyaw, for whom this foundation is set up, believed in the importance of education and empowering children. Our field trips are designed to have a large hands-on focus, with the overall message geared towards inspiring students to pursue their dreams and career goals through higher education.

But why take our word for it? See for yourself! Watch the video produced by our historians, Dingfang & Yaoming, and learn more through Dingfang's personal account below. 

See full album for STEAM 4: Fire & Glass (Glassblowing) field trip here.

Visiting MIT Glass lab

By Dingfang Zhou

A group of high school students and their MIT student mentors attended the workshop in MIT glass lab. The workshop is initiated by Amphibious Achrivement, a MIT student-run service organization and is aimed at introducing the high school students in Amphibious Achievement to new applications of science and math.

States, one of the mentors led the group walking across the “Inifite Corridor” in MIt Building #4. When arriving the glass lab, Patrick Barragan, instructor of the day has already waited outside the lab. He handed each visitors protective goggles and gave a brief introduction of the glass lab.

“I made this one,” said Barragan, pointing at a transparent glass vase with white stripes on the body, which was placed on top of the shelf in the display case outside the studio. He has been working in the glass lab for 7 years since his first year in graduate school in MIT.

“I went to the lottery and got really lucky. The first time I went I got in and I have been doing it ever since,” said Barragan. Glass blowing has been one of the most popular extra curricular activities on campus. Getting into the glass lab is almost as hard as getting into MIT itself.

Before entering the lab, he told the students: “If you don’t know specifically if something is hot. Assume it is. The floor is basically safe to walk.”

His colleagues in the lab were busy making a glass pumpkin together which will be sold at a fund-raise later. One of the crew dipped a metal pole with a molten blob on top into the furnace, and then pull the pole out and dipped the blob into a cement mode in order to give the glass pumpkin shape. Next, he gave a gentle blow at the other end of the pipe to puff the blob. After coloring, adjusting the shape and adding a vine, the glass pumpkin was put into a cooling cabinet for a night.

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Peter Houk, director of glass lab dips the metal pole into the furnace and get some molten blob on top of the pole. The blob is dripping into a tube with cold water underneath for the annealing process. (photo by: Yaoming Duan)

 

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A glass lab staff is blowing air into the glass pumpkin, which will be sold at a fund-raise later. (photo by: Yaoming Duan)

After the glass pumpkin demo of making glass pumpkin, one of the students volunteered to join with Barragan and Peter Houk, director of glass lab, for the “annealing” process-- a process of slowly cooling hot glass to relieve internal stresses after it was formed. Houk made two glass columns, one annealed and the other not. The student could easily break the latter with bare hands, however, he could not break the annealed glass even with a hammer.

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Workshop participant broke the glass column with bare hands under the instruction of Houk. (photo by: Yaoming Duan)

 

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Workshop participant tried to break the annealed glass with a hammer. (photo by: Yaoming Duan)

“It’s because of the stress,” said Houk. Annealing glass will increase its durability since the glass retains many of the stresses inside and becomes durable.

Then, each students got a chance to involve in glass production process such as glass blowing and shaping. The glass lab workshop is “once-in-a-life-time opportunity, even for MIT student,” said Michael Lu, a sophomore student who is also the mentor of Amphibious Achievement.

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A high school girl blows air into a glass blob at the other end of the metal pole. (photo by: Yaoming Duan)

 

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The glass lab workshop is “once-in-a-life-time opportunity, even for MIT student,” said Michael Lu, a sophomore student who is also the mentor of Amphibious Achievement. (photo by: Yaoming Duan)

“They(students) seem really interested and they seem engaged. I’m glad that all of them got to interact with glass physically so that they can see the importance of that physical interaction. MIT ‘Mens et Manus’ (‘Mind and Hand’) type of model is always important. Not only you are learning things but you can also working with them and trying do it yourself so you can really get a solidified understanding,” said Barragan after the workshop. 

glasslab-22“They(students) seem really interested and they seem engaged,” said Patrick Barragan, the instructor of the MIT glass lab. (photo by: Yaoming Duan)

A huge thanks to the MIT Glass Lab and, in particular, Patrick for your coordination with MIT Amphibz. Thank you Achievers for your enthusiasm and curiosity! We hope you continue to channel this into your future undertakings and use college as a means to achieve your desired career goals. 

To see what PN2K has planned for future youth development initiatives, please check back on our PN2K for Youth page.

STEAM #3: We fly high like planes

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Saturday, Nov 22nd found us, PN2K, partnering again with EcoVent's Dipul Patel and his stealthy side-kick, Nick Lancaster, while they worked their magic and awed the Amphibious Achievement crowd with planes. This PN2K-organized Amphibz adventure is the third in a series of field trips PN2K has collaborated with Amphibious Achievement to organize in the past calendar year. 

Achievers:
1) Learned why and how college can be an asset to their future careers
2) Spent a majority of time in application (building, flying, racing planes)
3) Debriefed and took away some sweet souvenirs, courtesy of EcoVent

It was incredible to see the amount of effort and thought that Dip and Nick put into making this event truly hands-on. For our new readers, Dip from EcoVent helped host our second STEAM field trip with rockets in MIT Killian Court (it was a blast, in every sense of the word!) Being familiar with our obsession on the experiential learning component, it was no surprise that when we met with Dip and Nick before the Achievers arrived, who had a box full of rubber-band-plane kits ready to go! And the way they guided these high school students through step-by-step instructions towards building successful plane kits gave them a glimpse into being engineers. 

Here is a glimpse of moments caught on camera.

 

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Thank you EcoVent for your demonstration, brilliance, and generosity; to Dipul Patel for purchasing these kits, and Nick L. for showing Achievers the physics behind airplane lift and flight. You guys are superb!! 

Thank you MIT Amphibz for your awesome Achievers and the enthusiasm they inspire!

We look forward to further adventures together. 

Full photo album here >

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PN2K Achievement Award 2014

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PN2K ANNOUNCEMENT: A big CONGRATULATIONS to LUCIE SANON, recipient of the 2014 PN2K Achievement Award, and first girl in her family to attend college! This award includes a $500 check written out to Lucie that will go towards her college expenses.

The Award, set up in memory of Phyo, is presented to an Achiever to continue encouraging him/her to pursue college and cover educational-related expenses. Candidates are assessed along the following criteria: dedication, potential, vigor of character as demonstrated through scholarship and athletics, commitment. 

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Lucie Sanon (left), PN2K Achievement Award recipient with Ye Yao (right), PN2K Foundation Co-Director

 

Lucie: We welcome you into our PN2K community with wide, open arms. We are proud of your achievements, but most of all, we are very proud of YOU for your dedication, commitment, potential to overcome life’s obstacles, and vigor of character as demonstrated through your improvement in academics and rowing.

Rock on, Lucie!

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If you are an Achiever of Amphibious Achievement, you might be eligible for the annual PN2K Achievement Award. Check out our website for more info (www.pn2k.org) and make sure you don’t miss our Spring application deadlines.

Where did the $500 come from?

From the erg-a-thon fundraiser organized by Amphibious Achievement on Thursday, April 17, 2014, $500 of the total raised was allocated towards The Phyo Nyi Nyi Kyaw Achievement Award, a joint scholarship award made possible in 2013-4 through the collaborative efforts of MIT Amphibz and PN2K.

 

STEAM #2: It’s Rocket Science.

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These past few weeks leading up to Friday, May 2, PN2K worked with Dipul Patel, CEO of EcoVent to conduct some master-mind brainstorming. That afternoon, things fell into place (literally) as we all ended up having a blast launching rockets outside Killian Court on a sunny Friday evening.

I met with our partners, MIT Amphibious Achievement, who had rounded up their group of curious and excited "Achievers" (high school mentees) and mentors. In total, there was about 12 of us meeting with Dip at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. If there is any association you should have in your mind with PN2K, it's that we are all about "hands-on" learning and tangible take-aways. It should be natural then that Dip had an amazing surprise waiting for Achievers - each person would be building (and taking back home) their own rocket-ships! 

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So after some brief introductions, we all headed to MIT Killian Court (under the famous MIT dome where, yes, there was once a firetruck hack) and refueled with chipotle, chips, and soda! Then we prepared for take-off and LAUNCHED. 

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Yes, we did have way too much fun, and yes - we totally went over our planned time. We attracted spectators, experimented with ideas, and finally wound down with coffee while debriefing (led by Dip) back at the E-Center. 

Well, I certainly learned a lot! First, I learned that kids are naturally curious and very action-oriented. Engaging projects will ignite that spark that leads to enthusiastic learning and creative experimentation. 

Achievers, you were awesome today. A HUGE thanks to Dip and EcoVent for such a brilliant time. Thank you to ALL of our wonderful sponsoring partners for helping to make this event possible, and most importantly, HUGE thanks to Amphibious Achievers for coming and making this experience GREAT for everyone.

Link to PN2K EcoVent Rocket-Launching photo album

Thanks to PN2K's community partners: EcoVent, Chipotle, Shaw's, Starbucks, Cambridge Bicycles

Erg-A-Thon!

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As I came out of the MIT Z-Center this afternoon, I caught sight of a huge tent with a multitude of ergs all lying parallel along the length of Kresge lawn. Of course, this would be the much anticipated MIT Erg-A-Thon from our partners, MIT Amphibious Achievement! 

This Erg-A-Thon runs from 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM and is AA's annual fundraiser, except that this year, we managed to work with co-founder Noam Angrist in 2013 as well as current co-president Alice Huang to make something additionally special happen: Noam mentioned they had toyed with the idea of creating a scholarship to be awarded to one of their high school mentees (called "Achievers") on an annual basis. The idea of attributing a scholarship in memory of Phyo (who was a mentor for Amphibious Achievement) was perfect - The scholarship would embody Phyo's spirit of teaching, growth, and scholarship for youth. 

So, this year, when you contribute to the MIT Erg-A-Thon, 10% of up to $5000 raised will go towards a PN2K $500 Achievement Award. This $500 fund will be granted to a graduating Achiever to support her/his aspirations through higher education. 

 

 

STEAM #1: Danger(ously)!Awesome

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PN2K and MIT Amphibious Achievement jointly held the first Amphibious Achievement company tour on April 5th, 2014. Achievers had the chance to visit the dangerously awesome Danger!Awesome, where they learned about lasers and how art and engineering can come together to make very cool things, like wooden star-shaped keychains engraved with our names! Throw in some potential new summer internship opportunities, food and games in the sun, and what more could a person ask for on a Saturday afternoon? Thank you Danger!Awesome for hosting us. Thank you MIT Amphibious Achievement for your hard-working Achievers — what a great group of students! PN2K looks forward to working with all of you more. We hope you were inspired to learn and explore.

See our full photo album for Danger!Awesome STEAM Field Trip #1

What is this PN2K initiative?

From Spring 2014-2015, PN2K started “STEAM” (science, tech, engineering, arts, maths), experiential-based learning field trips for high school students, organized in collaboration with an MIT student group called Amphibious Achievement. Learn more.