Grand Finale

I finished up my final day with the company today. I had a very great experience during my six weeks with the company. My final two weeks were very busy but filled with excitement. It involved lunch with the owners, a possible breakthrough on the project, a presentation to the company, more free lunches, and a company softball game.

In having lunch with the company owners, I discussed with them what they were looking for in top potential employees. They stressed the idea of diversity. In today's global work environment it is important to be as diverse as possible. They have workers who need to have science background as well as other education depending on their job. For example, they have patent lawyers who work for them and it is very beneficial for them to have a science background. They said this is happening all over the science industry. They love to have employees who are specialized in more than one area.

The project in which I was working on took a little different direction due to my previous work. Instead of continuing on with the exact objectives that they gave me, I began investigating a different idea of the project due to my findings. The company gave me the freedom to pursue this other alternative and I may have sparked an idea that could lead to a new alternative for the novel compound they are extracting.

As part of my time at the company, they had me give a presentation to the department on my summer work. This was a great opportunity to discuss about IMSEP and also share my findings will working on the project during my 6 weeks. I received great feedback about my work and proposed ideas. This even an involved a discussion with the VP of the department how they planned on pursuing my ideas even further.

The presentation was followed by a day of team building activities which was focused on helping to make the department even more productive. I actually participated in a few activities that I would like to carry into the classroom to help my make classroom more productive and team-like. This day ended with a very fun activity. We had a company softball game which was very fun activity to have at the end of my experience.

This was a tremendous experience and it has better equipped me to prepare my students for the 21st century job field. I learned a lot about the science industry. There are a number of different job opportunities in the science industry outside of just lab work. Also, technology and communication is at the center of the science industry. I will be able to share ideas about the science industry with my students, engage students in work-like activities, and help prepare students who are wanting to a pursue a career in chemical industry.

End of Week 3

As my third week here comes to a close, I have made good progress on my assigned project here at the company and I had some good conversations with my fellow employees. I had a conversation with my boss yesterday and discussed with her about the idea of incoporating a a workplace like atmosphere into the classroom. I will be working with my fellow scientist here to try and design a high school chemistry level project that is modeled around practices that are at the company. I will also be working to try and bring some of the scientist to the classroom to speak about their jobs and help with the project. This would be a community service opportunity for the company and the students would really benefit as well. One of my goals in my final two weeks here at the company will be to organize this project.

Week 3 Continues

I spent most of the day recording the results from my research project into the required lab book format. As I worked and looked back at some of my work, I started thinking about how I could implement the skills and ideas that I have learned here into the classroom. One ideas was to further build student skills on communicating scientific work. Another idea that I had is to teach students how to properly calibrate technology based lab equipment. As I gather more and more ideas I would like to formulate a work based experience that can be implemented into the classroom. One will be for grade level 9 science and the other will be for upper level chemistry students. I have less than 3 weeks here at Kemin and I will be working hard to use my resources here to begin to bring everything together so that I can carry this over into the classroom.

Half Way Point

I am at the half way point here at the company and my time here as been very beneficial on two levels. One way is that I have further developed my science skills in the area of chemistry by learning the current methods they are using here at the company. I could incorporate these current practices into the my curriculum. For example, HPLC is a method that is used quite frequently here at the company to indentify compounds and I could use a similiar type of chromotography in my classroom.

Another way my time has been very beneficial here is that I have learned a tremendous amount about the corporate aspect of science and how to prepare students for it. For example, there are more aspects to the corporate science field than lab work. Most students think that if you have a career in science then you work in a lab. The employees working in the lab are not the employees dealing with science. There are lawyers who write patents for the company , management provides direction on projects, vice presidents giving presentations on their products, and marketing and sales employees selling the chemical products to other companies. All of these preceding employees are not working in the lab but they have to have a science background in order to do their jobs. They have to have a science background to communicate with lab employees so that they communicate to the people they need to as part of their work.

As you can see, the corporate science world is a very diverse work place and they want diverse well skilled employees. Potential employees are not focusing on becoming diverse well skilled employees because the current education system is not properly preparing students. The current education system does not educate students on all the career options and what is happening in the evolving career fields. Careers are changing due to various reasons (environmental changes, economic challenges, technological advances) and for these reasons employers want and need well skilled diverse employees so the education system needs to help prepare students for this. Teachers need teach students practices that are occurring in the job field or at least make them aware of them so student interest can be sparked. This just isn't happening as much as it should. For example, I have had conversations with current employees here at the company who work in the lab with me. They told me that when they first started here that they were not well prepared for the type of work that they needed to do. Simple lab procedures that they do everyday now took them awhile to get used to because they had never done them before. They said it would have been a huge benefit to have focused more on lab methods during their education because that is what they do in the lab field. They said that colleges should do a better job of preparing students for the work place. Colleges and high schools alike should be keeping up on their research by knowing what practices are taking place in the job fields so that they can be taught in the education system. Isn't that the point of the education system anyway? To prepare their students for the job field.

My fellow lab workers also said that the education system does a poor job of educating students on potential jobs. I told them about the IMSEP program that I am working with this summer and how its goal is educate teachers about the current job field so they can better prepare their students. I continued to tell them that this will be done by teachers learning about all the various career options and learning about employbility skills that businesses are looking for and having the teachers teach these types of ideas and skills in the classroom. They thought this was a great idea and they wish this would have been done while they were in the classroom.

Thus far, I am at the half way point of my experience and it has been tremendously beneficial to me as teacher. I can't wait to get back into the classroom and use the knowledge that I have learned this summer in my curriculum. This experience will help me do my part as an educator in helping prepare students for the real world and I look forward to learning much more in my next three weeks at the company.

Week 3 Begins

Last week was a shortened week due to the Fourth of July Holiday, so I had a long weekend. I came back at the beginning of week 3 regevunated and ready to go. I spent most of my day in the lab testing a number of different samples. I wasn't able to find what I was looking for but that is the nature of lab work. Success usually doesn't happen before you spend a good deal of time searching for what it is that you desire. A good deal of my day was spent testing and coming up with new hyposthesis. Students in the classroom who are coming in the workfield need to have the ability to hypothesize, run experiments, evaluate their results, and think of new ideas if the desired results were not achieved. Students tend to give up when they do not succeed but they won't make it very far in the work place if they do. Well, my day is done here and the ideas for the classroom are continuing to swirl in my head.

Week Two

Here I am at the beginning of week number two at the company. Today, I had to report to safety training in the morning. Safety is a big priority in the chemical industry and this should be strongly stressed in the school environment also. In the afternoon, I had to collect possible sources for the project that I have been assigned.
One thing that I will take back to the classroom, is to help students develop their responsibility to complete given task. Many students do poorly when they have been given an assignment to do where they have to take the initiative to complete several aspects of the assignment. A lot of times in the business world the project will require the employee to take the initiative to organize and have the responsiblilty to finish the project with little supervision. Students need to have the organizational skills and responsibility to manage projects and complete them even when there is little supervision.
Well, my day is done here at the company and I look forward to coming back tomorrow.

First Week is in the Books

Well, I have just finished my first week at the company. It was nice to get my feet wet during the first week and become comfortable here. It has only been one week here but I already have a number a different ideas and concepts that I can bring to the classroom for my students. This is going to be a really great experience for me to grow as a professional and it will really allow me to bring some new and exciting teaching practice to the table next year. So much has happened during the first week and I can tell with all the work that I have to get done that I will have many more experiences I can use to enhance my teaching skills.

Training Day

I spent a good deal of my time today being trained for certain laboratory procedures that I will have to use as part of my project. The company is very particular about the way procedures are carried out in the lab. Everything needs to be exact in order to make sure that they are seeing the correct results. Also, they need to be able to reproduce their results, so accuracy and precision is a must in the lab. I am looking forward to getting my hands wet in the lab and tomorrow may be the first day that I get the opportunity to do just that. Another day in the books and I am looking forward to coming back tomorrow.

Making Progress on the Project

Today, I made good progress working on my assigned project. One way that the company functions is to patent means of producing a specified chemical so that they can sell it to other companies. The project that I have been assigned to has a patent pending on the method so I am unable to disclose specific information about the project. The overall goals of the project is extract a specified chemical from the best source possible. The company already has a very good canidate but it is part of my project to indentify and test potential sources for the specified chemical. This will be my first objective this summer. The second objective will be to further test the specified chemical to better the production of this chemical.
As I was working on this project, I started marking down 21st century skills my work would align well with. Also, I started writing down specific ideas for learning activities that could be used in my classroom. For example, the company puts out a newsletter that gives an update on what they have accomplished. I could set up a mini science business in my classroom and the students would have to occasionally write newsletters to their parents to give an update on what they are doing in the classroom.
Well, my day is done here at the company. Another very exciting day is in the books!

First Two Days

I have finished my first two days at the company. The ideas are beginning to fly in my head on how I can incoporate 21st centuty skills into my teachings. I feel very fortunate to get the opportunity to learn about what is taking place in the job field. I feel very confindent that I will have a large number of valuable experience that I can share with my students. Also, I will be able to add these experiences to my skill sets as a teacher and this will make my teachings more real world applicable.