Teaching research project takes WPI students to Namibia

By Tara Monastesse
Posted 8/28/18

By TARA MONASTESSE A college student hailing from Warwick recently had the overseas opportunity of a lifetime. Ryan McLaughlin, a rising senior at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, participated in an involved research trip with the

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Teaching research project takes WPI students to Namibia

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A college student hailing from Warwick recently had the overseas opportunity of a lifetime.

Ryan McLaughlin, a rising senior at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, participated in an involved research trip with the mission to address a societal issue or need using technology. At the WPI Project Center in Namibia, Africa, McLaughlin and three other students worked as a team to use technology to teach science classes in rural schools. From March 10th to May 4th, the student team worked to develop and then teach students using interactive lessons and games they created themselves, known as “modules.”

The 24 students on the trip were divided into six groups of four, each group with a different sponsor. Starting in January, they worked together to formulate their goals based on the needs of the rural students they would be educating. The three other students in McLaughlin’s group were Julia Decker, Katherine Kowalczyk, and Stephanie Smieszek.

EduVentures Trust, the sponsor for McLaughlin’s group, provides a mobile classroom to educate students in rural villages in Namibia as part of its education program. Known as the Ombombo mobile classroom, the classroom is transported by truck and powered by solar energy.

EduVentures Trust, an organization sponsored by the National Museum of Namibia, was founded in 2003 and aims to educate the Namibian public on energy consumption and sustainable practices. EduVentures began using the Ombombo mobile classroom in 2013, in order to bring technology to classes in rural areas that lacked it. EduVentures Trust is sponsored by the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF), which specifically funds the mobile classroom. HSF’s mission is to promote democracy, service, and development through political education. As the classroom is part of the foundation’s Promoting Renewable Energies in Namibia Project, the foundation personally reviewed the group’s modules and their content.

The mobile classroom features the technology of a “SMART board” that McLaughlin describes as an “electronic whiteboard.” SMART boards are designed to run educational software, which provided the perfect platform for the research group to educate students using technology.

McLaughlin’s group project, titled “Environmental Sustainability and Energy Efficient SMART Lessons for EduVentures Trust,” used three programmed modules designed to be used on the Ombombo classroom’s SMART board.

“We provided EduVentures Trust with three interactive SMART modules,” the research group wrote in their project summary. “We consulted stakeholders to determine the content of the modules and incorporated interactive elements, such as activities and games, to encourage learners."

The lessons covered by the modules focused on sustainability, natural resources, and eco-entrepreneurship. In a time where Earth’s energy consumption is rising, educating students on more effective energy usage is vital, McLaughlin’s group claimed in their report.

During their weeks in Namibia, the student group traveled to schools that applied for the EduMobile program and taught students how to use their modules to learn more about environmental resources. They spent a week with each school, eventually assigning the students an environmental project to be presented to their teachers, parents, fellow students, and EduVentures staff at the end of the week.

Students were also taught how to start and maintain an environmental club at their school. In addition teaching in the mobile classroom, the WPI research team also visited local villages to speak about sustainability.

McLaughlin described his experience with the students of Namibia as “immersive and humbling.”

He explained that, as a result of teachers who do not have the experience or resources to educate on certain science topics, many citizens in Namibia are unaware of the potential of the natural resources of their nation. Namibia’s education system isn’t very well-regulated or uniform, he said, meaning that many important topics are only briefly covered or not covered at all in classrooms.

Graduating from Bishop Hendricken High School in 2015, McLaughlin chose to study mechanical engineering due to his interest in math and science classes during high school. He recalls expressing an interest in “figuring out how things work.”

“Hendricken helped me figure out what I wanted to do, earlier than I probably would have otherwise,” he said.

In addition to working with students in classrooms, McLaughlin also worked with his group to interview eight stakeholders. These interviews helped the group to determine what content and interactive elements should be incorporated into their modules.

At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, all undergraduates are required to complete a research-driven project intended to address a societal issue and improve the lives of other people. Known as an “Interactive Qualifying Project,” the assignment aims to link scientific studies to active problems in society. Approximately two-thirds of undergraduates fulfill this requirement at one of WPI’s over 40 off-campus project centers. These centers are located in 25 different countries, across six continents, and are utilized as part of the institute’s Global Projects Program (GPP). Project centers can be found anywhere from large cities to small villages, in order to provide a large variety of experiences to students completing projects overseas.

Founded in 1865, WPI was one of the nation’s first engineering and technology institutes. The institute offers over 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs across its 14 academic departments, in such areas as science, engineering, technology, social science, and the humanities and arts. McLaughlin says he chose the school because he believed the institute would support his academic interests well.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute describes its international projects as a signature element of its educational programs, and wishes to provide every student with the opportunity to study globally. Beginning with the class of 2022, all WPI students will receive a $5,000 scholarship to fund the completion of a global project.

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