First Blog-June 12: Take Off
“9 hours, 51 minutes with the wind at our back”… It sounded like we’d touch down in Accra a half hour early this time. In many ways preparing for this project felt like old hat – I knew the basic supplies I would need, where to stay, and who contact. As we pushed off the [...]
Leading a workshop at SmallWorld
Deborah and Alorah Harman (2011, Course 1) took an early winter trip and traveled to Cambodia, partnering with the Harpswell Foundation, a women’s dormitory and leadership center located in Tuek Thla, Phnom Penh, to teach a series of workshops aimed at fostering creativity and innovation through engineering and leadership. By teaching some of Cambodia’s most [...]
What does ‘buy local’ mean to the people of Hawai’i?
BLOGGING FROM THE FIELD July 28, 2011 MIT undergrad and Public Service Intern Cydnie Trice is developing a marketing plan for the Hawai’i Alliance for a Local Economy this summer. For the past couple weeks, I’ve been surveying at local grocery stores and farmers markets around the island. We designed a survey for consumers aimed [...]
Installing a rain-water catchment system in Cambodia
Students in John Ochsendorf’s class, 4.472: D-Lab Schools, spent the fall 2010 planning to travel to rural Cambodia to work on school design projects. The class traveled over IAP, and a number of projects were undertaken, from installing new shutters to provide airflow during rainstorms, to building a latrine using rice husk ask (RHA) mixed [...]
Fulbright Scholar heads to Ghana
Anna Waldman-Brown, a joint major in Physics and Writing and Humanistic Studies, president of MIT’s Lab for Chocolate Science, former Public Service Center Fellow and Global Challenge winner was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for the 2011-2012 school year. This scholarship takes her to Ghana to design educational materials to help teachers and students develop energy [...]
MIT students running Costa Rica’s first ever science camp
BLOGGING FROM THE FIELD July 1, 2011: Out of the frying pan This last week has been one of the busiest times of my life (and that’s coming from a recent MIT grad!). Since our camps start in a few short days, this is crunch time and our preparation has been a bit of a [...]
Costa Rican Culture 101
BLOGGING FROM THE FIELD June 23, 2011: Coffee, Sulfur, and Rrrrain Today’s post will involve some miscellany but I’ll tell you how the last couple days have been going (in no particular order). Volcanoes If there is one defining feature of the Costa Rican landscape, its the stretch of volcanoes that runs right down the [...]
Saba Mohsin ’11: Project Introduction
BLOGGING FROM THE FIELD June 21, 2011 Buenas. I’m writing from Costa Rica, where I’ve been for only two days but still have a lot to say about it. I’m here working with el Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia (MICIT) on a new project of theirs called Talento Joven (meaning “Young Talent”). The goal of [...]
Math tutoring at a local school
Drew Minnear ’14 spent IAP 2011 learning about the Cambridge Public School system. Through a Community Service Work-Study position, he worked in the Cambridge School Volunteers office writing public service announcements and distributing them to radio stations while also investigating ways for the office to go paperless. The second part of his job allowed him [...]
Connecting to the environment
Sondra Smith ‘12 spent the summer of 2010 as a Community Service Work-Study student with theMOVE (the MA Outdoor Volunteer Experience), a new nonprofit that coordinates reflective farm-volunteer workdays for diverse groups throughout the Boston area. Sondra helped with data analysis, creating an experiential learning curriculum, and setting up a membership system. She said, “I [...]
Mixing dance class with homework
During IAP 2010, Ashli Davis ’12 and Merricka Livingstone ’12 worked as homework tutors at the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House afterschool program through Community Service Work-Study. The Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House is a very short walk from campus in Area IV and is a member of the Kendall Community Group—a collaboration between MIT, local businesses [...]
ReachOut: Teach a child to read
The MIT Public Service Center partners with the Cambridge Community Center to run a literacy tutoring program for elementary school aged children called ReachOut. During the 2010-2011 school year, fifty-five MIT students participated in the program as volunteer or work-study tutors, meeting with the same child twice a week to tackle reading, writing, and language [...]
Cleaning up the Charles River during CityDays
CityDays kicks off the school year as a traditional part of orientation at MIT. Groups of MIT students – freshmen and upperclassmen – venture into the Cambridge and Boston communities to complete service projects. Some of the community organizations (among the 42 total) that students work with include AIDS Action Committee, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of [...]
Integrating computers in a rural village in India
Sisters Shriddha ’09 and Samiksha Nayak ’10 traveled to Hichkad India, their ancestral home, over IAP 2008. This trip meant setting up the Hichkad Primary School’s first computer and teaching everyone how to use it. They were able to work with the local teachers and integrated the computer into course curricula. In addition to the [...]
Improving TB treatment with Team Treatment Buddies
Tuberculosis claims nearly 2 million lives annually. The vast majority of these deaths occur in the developing world, where lack of drug adherence leads to new and deadly drug-resistant strains. TB fatalities arise not from a lack of scientific knowledge—effective treatment was developed in 1946—but in the last mile of treatment. Figuring out where treatment [...]
Designing the Cyclos motor
In the class Product Engineering Process, 2.009, a team of students designed an affordable system, Cyclos, that extracts oil from filters so they can be safely recycled. Cyclos is targeted to the small auto shops that often throw away their filters – leading to serious water contamination around the landfills. Pictured are Dave Foster ’08 [...]
Opening of the Nsutaman Community Library
Public Service Fellow and Grantee Sadik Antwi-Boampong ’09 established the Nsutaman Community Library, the only library in the town of Nsuta, Ghana. Sadik was anointed with the honorary title of Development Chief responsible for Student Affairs in January 2008 at the official opening of the library.
Working for New Ecology Inc.
Community Service Work-Study student Shiva Prakash ’09 assisted New Ecology Inc (NEI) with background research on new technologies for public housing and other government sponsored projects in low-income communities. NEI works with its constituents to help them integrate sustainable development into their ongoing work: development that protects environmental quality and eliminates pollution and waste, provides [...]
Laila and Seema of BLISS
For adolescent Afghan refugee girls in Pakistan, choosing work instead of school to help cover household expenses is often a necessity. ’05, SM ’09 and Eleni Orphanides ’10 are determined to change that. As co-founders of BLISS, which stands for Business and Life Skills School, they are making it possible for girls who would otherwise [...]
Teaching in Turkey
Summer 2010 Public Service Fellow Christie Lin (’11 Course 22) traveled to Istanbul, Turkey with students at Robert College. Christie, along with students Cemre and Deger, are setting up the chemistry lab experiments in an effort to teach about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning. In this photo they are weighing out the metal oxides. [...]
Physiology Understanding Week
Alexandra Elisa German (G, Course HST) and Grace Sock Leng Teo (G, Course HST) using an activity to explain blockage of blood vessels with coffee sticks and straws during Physiology Understanding Week (PhUn Week) in November 2010. PhUn Week, a nationwide outreach program building connections between scientists and their local schools, aims to engage students [...]
Explaining physiology
Harry Benjamin Larman (G, Course HST) explains bones and the skeletons with children for Physiology Understanding Week (PhUn Week) November 2010. PhUn Week is a nationwide outreach program building connections between scientists and their local schools.
