The focus of this week was lesson plans. I worked with Laila on a synchronous lesson plan about building a website with HTML and CSS. I also worked with Sabrina on an asynchronous lesson plan about biocoding. I think both of the topics are very interesting and should be fun and interactive for the girls. I also had a great time playing around with the websites we used for coding. For biocoding, I drew a bacterium on Scratch and programmed it to move with the left or right keys to demonstrate manipulation of bacteria DNA. I also drew the bacterium different costumes just for fun. I made one outfit a wedding dress and the other a suit. I had a great time playing around with that and the CSS tutorials. I hope the girls have as much fun when they go through the lesson plans.
Our Duke Engage cohort also had a mixed race session this week with Duke in Detroit. Normally, when working with this race conscious cons
ulting company there would be three race affinity group meetings before a mixed race group. Last week, when we had our first and only affinity group I didn’t think more same affinity groups were necessary. I was wrong. I felt like this mixed race setting was uncomfortable in an unhelpful way. When we were in breakout rooms it felt like everyone had something to share,
but when we got to the main room it felt like no one had anything to say. It was frustrating and I would have liked to have more open dialogues and sharing from both affinity groups. However, at the same time I understand that everyone has differing levels of comfort when talking about race, but I can’t help but want more. Hopefully, our next
meeting will be better.