STEP Day 1

Today I embarked on a new adventure I have not participated in before: The Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP). Per the RIT K-12 website,

The RIT Science and Technology Entry Program, or STEP, is a state-funded grant program that provides academic enrichment and college and career exploration to students in grades 7 - 12. http://www.highered.nysed.gov/kiap/step/ 

Through activities such as hands-on workshops, tutoring, mentoring, college & career exploration, field trips, summer camps, and leadership training, STEP exposes students to a variety of careers in science, technology, math, health- related fields, and licensed professions. 

Currently, the RIT STEP program serves selected schools within the Rochester City School District, Rush-Henrietta School District, and Greece Olympia.

My involvement with this program is facilitating an Imaging Science workshop each Saturday in January. A group of 7 students raging from grades 9-11 spend 3.5 hours with me each Saturday morning for the next 4 weeks. While Joe has participated in something similar to this before, this particular format is a first for me. One aspect that is new to either of us is the competitive element: of the 5 workshops being offered campus-wide, only two of them will be selected for inclusion in the STEP Annual Conference in Albany, NY. I'm not totally sure how I feel about this - I would much rather offer a variety of workshop activities without the added stress and constraints of being part of a competition - but I didn't want to be left out entirely, so I figured I would give it a shot.

My plan for a research experiment for my students to carry out and present revolved around using a thermal camera to determine insulating properties of clothing - but I was going to do as much as possible to steer them towards developing their own experiment that they could own versus me handing something down to them. Regardless, I planned for the experiment to involve thermal imaging, so I scheduled today's 2.5 hours (our meeting time was shortened this week due to a math exam) to include an introduction to imaging science, the electromagnetic spectrum, and thermal imaging. After a break, we would all read the project guidelines handed down to us by the STEP program and discuss what we would be doing for the next couple Saturdays. From there, we would develop an experiment - or, well, that was the plan, anyway.

The first thing we did was go around the room, introduce ourselves, and say why we were there. While a couple of the students said they were there because they like science, most of them said they were there because their parents made them.... Aaaaand we're off to a great start.

This is going to be a long day.

For workshops I really prefer to stay away from power point presentations in favor of more hands-on activities, but today it was inevitable in order to introduce the students to thermal imaging and lay the groundwork for our experiment. So I started off with my usual "About Me", into which I weave information about Imaging Science at RIT, but after a few minutes it seemed I was losing their attention. Even the couple of students that started out seeming pretty interested were looking bored, which was a major blow to my confidence. I sped through the rest of that part in order to get to the fun stuff with the thermal camera. After a short introduction and overview of the EM spectrum for the kids who hadn't learned about it yet, we got into the demo.... And I'm disappointed to say that I have never had a group less interested in interacting with the camera.

Zzzzzzz?

Even once I picked students to get in front of the camera, they were seemingly unamused, as were the rest of the students watching. Even the ol' mustache gag wasn't doing the trick. We dragged our heels through the rest of the demo, and that's when I knew this workshop was going to be a real challenge. Even when students don't resonate with my passionate presentations or ridiculous personality, which will go so far as to become self-deprecating at an attempt to become relatable or at least laugh-at-able, usually they open up with the thermal camera and enjoy themselves at some point. With this group.... not so much. Nothing I was doing seemed to be working. I wrapped up the presentation and excused them for a 10 minute break, which dragged into 18 minutes since a few of them apparently decided they didn't really want to come back, or at least weren't going to come back until someone told them to.

After the break, I passed out the abstract guidelines for their project. The rules outlined by the STEP program were very detailed and strict, and in some cases seemed inapplicable to the type of experiment we were going to carry out. It sounded as if we were supposed to have had 8-10 weeks of experimentation, whereas we will have 2 Saturday mornings (since the 4th Saturday is presentations). Even so, as a group we went over what we were going to have to submit next Saturday for an abstract, and from that we could develop our experiment. This too was like pulling teeth, so before too long I transitioned into brainstorming because I thought that at least would get them involved, right? Right?

Wrong.

I asked the kids what kind of experiment they wanted to do. Silence. I asked them what kinds of things they saw in the presentation I just gave. Mumbles. "Firefighters." "Doctors." "Animals." Okay... So what kind of an experiment can you draw from those examples? Silence. Well, first and foremost, what kind of category do you want your experiment to fall into? By the democratic process and a show of hands, we decided on "Human Services". So I provided context about Superstorm Sandy as an example: after the storm, many people were left homeless and without possessions, or at the very least without power. To aid in emergency relief, they were given blankets to keep warm. Can you think of anything we can do with that using a thermal camera?" Nope. *Sigh.*

This isn't to say that the kids were totally drawing a blank - they did try to come up with some ideas for an experiment. Unfortunately, most of those ideas were either outside of the scope of what we could accomplish in two Saturdays; or were not applicable to Imaging Science or thermal imaging; or were not
relevant at all (requirement #1 in the guidelines we were given). As the clock ticked down and the students just wanted to get out for lunch, they decided to just go with my idea in some way but to make it "Stocking an Emergency Preparedness Kit". We quickly listed a bunch of items we would test that we would have to bring next Saturday, and then time was up.

To be honest, I have such mixed emotions about this experience. It is really discouraging to know that I am putting my all into something that still fails to excite these kids, despite my effort. It really doesn't feel good to spend my Saturday morning with a bunch of kids who don't want to spend theirs with me. And then I feel guilty about feeling that way, because these kids probably don't have it easy to begin with and probably have to deal with people who give up on them all the time. The whole experience leaves me drained and tired and, to be honest, sad. But I'm going to hold out hope and keep trying; maybe things will turn around next week when we start to actually experiment. Either way, when it comes down to it this really isn't about me and how I feel; it's about making a worthwhile experience for these kids that hopefully they learn from and enjoy doing. And I'm still going to do all I can to give that to them.