STEM Outreach for students from the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (PSD)
Since 2016, the 3DAFSN Lab initiated a new Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program targeting under-represented deaf students from Philadelphia and surrounding counties, in particular deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students from the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (PSD). This initiative has since been included in the MRSEC program at UPenn, and is supported by the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM) (Dr. Arjun Yodh, director; Dr. Mark Licurse, Director of Education & Outreach), with the collaboration of Dr. Jami N. Fisher, the American Sign Language (ASL) Program Coordinator from the School of Arts Sciences at UPenn. This program also benefits from a collaboration with the outreach branch of the Deaf-Hearing Communication Centre (DHCC) led by Kyle Rosenberg. While the initial focus of this initiative is on the social integration of deaf and hard-of-hearing students from PSD, the 3DAFSN Lab is actively looking for support to extend this STEM program beyond social integration by offering practical trainings in STEM related fields to these students.
Summer 2017: Twenty-six (26) participants to the kick-off STEM event in 2017 in LRSM Auditorium at UPenn:14 DHH students from PSD and 12 hearing students from Gerard College.
Summer 2019: Sam Welborn (graduate student, 3DAFSN Lab) and the ASL interpreter, demonstrating to DHH students from PSD and hearing students from Gerard College how hydrogen fuel cells and water splitting work. This was during the annual STEM event in the LRSM Auditorium at UPenn
Summer 2019: Jintao Fu (graduate student, 3DAFSN Lab) and the ASL interpreter, demonstrating to DHH students from PSD and hearing students from Gerard College how lemon batteries work. This was during the annual STEM event in the LRSM Auditorium at UPenn.