This was my first full week of Duke Engage: Orange County, since our official start date was on Monday, June 7th. In the run-up to the program, we had a couple of meetings to go over the contours of the schedule, get to know each other and our program director Marlee Krieger, and begin brainstorming. Our work this week, however, was primarily asynchronous. We each wrote bios as a way of sharing about ourselves, learning more about each other, and to provide a way for Girls Inc. (our partner organization) to receive our introductions, and had our first team reflection (and met our site coordinator, Jessie Yates) on Friday morning. Using some previous examples and templates offered by Girls Inc., each of us also researched, developed, and submitted our ideas for our Duke STEM lesson plans, four of which will be selected for further development and fleshing out in teams of two.
Girls Inc.’s main focus for us this week, though, was on recruitment for the Open House they were hosting for Eureka! camp. To facilitate attendance at this Open House (and eventual registration of girls for the Eureka! summer camp), each of us were given sections of a large contacts list to email with a script and flyers to invite recipients to attend the virtual session and learn more about Girls Inc.’s summer offerings. I thought it was cool that the script and flyers for the email recruitment were provided and attached in both Spanish and English, and it served as a useful reminder for me of the focus and intention necessary for us to meet the needs of the population we are serving. Overall, I enjoyed our first week of the program and am looking forward to beginning Eureka! training next week.