Also watch EGG Drop here.

It’s 8 pm and we’re currently on a train to Gyeong-ju, the ancient capital of Korea. It’s incredible to think that we’ve finished camp and it’s surreal that I’ve spent my last day at Yeomyung.

We began the day with finishing up student final projects. Somehow all the projects came together today and looked pretty cool. After lunch, we spent an hour working on posters and then presented on our own projects and ourselves. We also played EGG Drop, the video I compiled of our crazy two weeks.

During final presentations, almost all of the teachers showed up. It was really rewarding seeing the students faces light up as the teachers audibly ohhed and ahhed over their projects. Grace’s house that lit up when the lights turned on, Jarvis’s Bluetooth car, Bill’s Arduino piano, and the Scratch games were particularly big hits. After we handed out materials to the students to take home, we went out for a class buffet dinner before rushing to Seoul Station for our train out.

I can’t believe that my time at Yeomyung is over. To be honest, I didn’t want to come back this year. I contemplated applying to a different GTL and actually requested to be placed in a different school. After two years of the program, I was a bit jaded on how much impact the program really brought. Students fell asleep in class, we heard of the brightest alumni failing out of college. I was wondering what value our hectic two weeks and months of planning really brought.

This year, I came in with the mindset that I wanted to just have a great lesson plan and wanted my team to have a good time. Throughout the two weeks, I was surprised by many old students who walked in to say hi. Lucy is now a chemistry student at Seoul National University and comes back to mentor younger students in chemistry. Rachel is a student from my first two years who really was interested in machine learning. She came by today to watch the final presentations and when I asked her about machine learning she told me that she “knew that now!”

I tend to make decisions based on fear of missed opportunities. A lot of the beginning of last year was spent trying to figuring out what really mattered to me and coming up empty handed. I tend to be pretty skeptical of life changing experiences. I came into this year thinking that so long as each student at least had a fun two weeks I’d be satisfied.

And to be fair, I’m sure most of my students do think this was a fun two week camp. But I’d like to share a story about one student in particular.

Jennifer told me earlier last week that she joined camp cause it was better than being home being yelled at by her mom. She did all the activities that we had planned but she told us that everything was OK, that she was pretty ambivalent about everything. This week, we worked on the electric car together and she finished faster than anyone else. For her final project, she built a car that worked with photo-resistors and understood the code. Today at dinner, she told us that she found coding fascinating and that she really enjoyed camp.

She accompanied us halfway on the way back because she was heading home and when we hugged goodbye, she started crying.

Yeomyung has taught me the most about teaching. I’ve always held the belief that teaching at its essence could be distilled into the imparting of information. The school has showed me that teaching is multi-dimensional. Yeomyung has taught me about the importance of the teaching of joy and the teaching of confidence.

A student my very first year told me that she dreamed to fix all the problems of the world. Jennifer this year told me that she used to have dreams but then she just figured that they’d never come true. During lunchtimes we talked for hours about the possibility of studying for grad school in America, as my parents had done. Today, she told me that it was her plan to do just that.

I’m not naive enough to believe that our camp has a long or life altering impact on all students lives. But this year and these little moments remind me why I love teaching. And I think Yeomyung has given me a little key into what makes things meaningful: those things that make your heart hurt to leave.

This very belated blog post is about our final day of teaching modules last Thursday!

Laura kicked off the morning with a presentation on mathematics and art/design. It was a lesson I’d been looking forward to since November, when I caught a glimpse of the gorgeous slides that Laura had put together. The students reacted to the video about the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence with exclamations of “와!!!” and arm-flexing to see if the human body indeed follows mathematical patterns encoded in nature.

Afterwards, the students had a chance to make mosaics out of tiles; I hadn’t seen the students as focused as I had seen them then. The class was eerily silent as people glued on the tiles to the wooden cutting boards.

Then came the origami session (in Korean it’s 종이접기, which also means “paper folding”). When Laura showed a video of one of the self-folding origami robots from MIT, Jarvis took one look and said, “I want to make that.” When it turned out we didn’t have the necessary materials, Jarvis settled for making one of the tessellated skin patterns while the rest of the class folded Ninja stars and paper hearts.

After art and design was astronomy. Looking back, it might have been too technical in some parts and too simple in others–I wanted to introduce the students to different coordinate systems to help navigate the night sky, and create a “Yeomyeong solar system” (à la the Infinite Solar System courtesy of Prof. Binzel). I am pretty sure I lost the students when I talked about right ascension and declination, but at least the students were interested in the celestial globe. It also took a little prodding for the students to line up in the classroom to represent the different planets–next time I might have to give more incentives (like candy?). Would much appreciate any pedagogy suggestions.

After astronomy came even more finals projects! The night before, Emily, Laura, Jordan and I talked about final projects preferences for each of the students, and split the class into the coding-heavy and the building-heavy groups.

During the final project preparation, Rachel found out that the wires for the speaker kept getting tangled. We had a conversation about the physics behind knots, and Rachel decided that she wanted ditch the speaker and do the knots instead. She spent the rest of the time shaking a box containing string, then asked me to send her a translated version of the abstract. It was honestly one of my proudest moments.

I also had the chance to talk to Kitty and Rose, whom I didn’t get to interact with much, as they worked on their electronics kits for soil moisture and body temperature. When it came to soldering the different components, I noticed that Kitty was very interested in the process and let her solder. I wasn’t surprised to find out that Kitty was a much better solderer than I was–she said she was soldering the way her grandfather in North Korea used to solder. I didn’t ask her when the last time she had the chance to see him was.

After final projects we had last minute filming for the music video, and got ready for the very last day at Yeomyeong.

Finishing up magnetic levitators

After making the usual Paris Baguette stop, we made our way to Yeomyung. Many of the students still hadn’t finished their magnetic levitator circuits from the day before, so we spent the first part of class finishing them up. All of the students got them to work, and they were super excited! Many of them thought it was cool enough to take videos of for themselves.

Making Electric Cars

After finishing up the magnetic levitator circuits, we started working on the next module for the day: Robots! The students worked in teams to build an electric car that would follow lines taped on the ground. Most of the students ended up finishing, and one team even got to add a radio transmitter to their car to make it remote controlled!

Final Projects

After putting away the electric cars, the students worked on brainstorming potential final project ideas. For most of the week, students have been doing projects in teams, working together to finish the labs. For the final two days of the workshop, though, students work individually on a project they’re interested in. After giving them time to brainstorm project ideas for the sessions they liked the most, we assigned each student to a project area and spent time during our nightly debrief to nail down the specific requirements for each. We had to take into account the interests of the students, the materials we had available, and the difficulties for each project. Through this process, we arrived at some ambitious, yet doable projects. The only thing left was for the students to finish them!

Photoshoot

Every year, each GTL-Korea team makes a video showcasing their experiences teaching and living in Korea for the month, and we decided to be a bit extra for our video. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but this required us to get footage of us dancing in specific places throughout Seoul. So after class, the team headed to the city to get the footage we needed to make our vision a reality. While we definitely got some weird looks from people, it was well worth it.

Egg Hunt

One of the ingredients for making the video mentioned above was a raw egg, which the lady serving us dinner was nice enough to give us. Then tragedy struck; when we tried to take the shot we needed, mistakes were made *cough* Laura *cough*, and we suddenly found ourselves in need of another egg. This was surprisingly difficult to obtain; after searching through multiple convenience stores and small markets, I was starting to lose hope. But on the way back, we finally found what we were looking for at a nearby 7-Eleven. After getting back to our apartment, we successfully filmed the shot and went back to focusing on the final projects.

Today, our students learned about light and remote sensing in the morning and had a first taste with electronics and circuits in the afternoon! Once the students entered the classroom, we gave them Google Cardboards to explore virtual reality. At Emily’s table, Sally excitedly reached for the Google Cardboard and began swinging her head around to get a complete view of the environment around her. Instead of tilting her head down to view the ground, she bent over, slowly lowering her head until her head popped up quickly — she had lowered her head too far and had bumped right into the table. Needless to say, the students had a blast with VR.

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For the later part of the morning, we went down to the computer lab to explore the globe through Google Earth. Originally, Sheila planned the activity to tie together concepts of satellites, remote sensing and geography but it quickly transformed into a method for student’s to share their personal backgrounds.

Several students called us over to point out their hometown in North Korea, their home until their early teens. They would point out their old homes, schools, and favorite spots for fun. Then, they would scroll to the left and point out the river border between North Korea and China. In a nonchalant tone, one boy told me that he had to run over as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Another girl confided that she had to dig a tunnel to cross under the electric fence guarding the Chinese border. Each student told their story with such calmness that it was a bit disconcerting for me. I can’t even imagine what they must have experienced to leave their old life behind and spend months or even years traveling through China or other countries to finally reach South Korea.

On a happier note, the students really enjoyed the lab that Jordan put together about circuits. Pairs of students built a contraption using a microcontroller and light sensor to adjust the brightness of an LED. Next, they built a magnetic levitator, which was super cool! Jarvis was the first to finish, and refused to leave until he had everything working correctly even when class had ended. His enthusiasm for every single activity is so infectious and it makes each day teaching worthwhile.

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Team Adventures

Today for dinner, Jordan tried pig’s feet for the first time, and he liked it! While eating, we played “36 questions that lead to love” together, and it was really fun! Although we ate for nearly an hour, we had only finished the first set of 12 questions! The game is a really great way to bond with people, and we definitely learned a lot more about each other.

We’re almost half way through the second week, and none of us want it to end! Our students are fun, the food is delicious, and spending every second with this team is such a blessing!

To more memories

Laura

Saturday

We started this Saturday with a late morning at Paris Baguette. After a slow breakfast, joined by Slava!, Laura, Jordan, and I headed out to start our day excursion to Suwon, a city around 40 minutes south of Seoul. Sheila split off to visit her old neighborhood for the day.

We made it to Seoul Station and successfully purchased tickets with our dwindling supply of cash. We then boarded the train. We were all sitting separately, but Laura and I sat next to two adorable kids who offered us each candy. After disembarking, we vetoed a taxi and decided to walk to the fortress walls instead. The old city of Suwon in enclosed in a massive wall, situated on a hill.

After walking along the wall for a bit and visiting some pagodas and gates, we headed into the city to check out the old palace. Although the palace was destroyed by the Japanese during the occupation, it had been refurbished. We wandered around the palace for a bit and also climbed up to the adjoining pagoda. The forest looked like it was out of a movie. Unfortunately, the zipper on my boot popped along our walk so I spent the rest of the day with my boot held together by two hair ties. Hair ties are resilient.

A bit hungry after our hike, we headed to Suwon chicken street but only found one chicken place open. Using much gesturing, some Google translate and pointing, we managed to order three bowls of jiajiangmian and some traditional fried chicken. Success!

Full, we headed to the archery court that Laura had read about online. Each person was able to shoot 10 arrows for 2000 won! I was quite bad at it but Jordan excelled. At this point, the sun had disappeared and it was getting quite cold. We headed back into the city to check out the mural village before heading to dinner. The murals were beautiful and whimsical but the entire area was eerily deserted.

Finally, we headed to the main gate for dinner at the food trailers. We ducked into a local bakery and bought some bread before dinner. Although we didn’t eat the bread we bought, we definitely cleaned out the bakery’s free samples. Wandering through the night market, we decided upon galbi and sundae (Korean sausage) soups. We ordered by pointing and much gesturing until we realized the waitress spoke Chinese.

Stuffed and warm, we started the long journey home. Laura and I both fell asleep on the train. We headed to bed soon after.

Sunday

We woke up early to grab some breakfast at a local restaurant before heading out for our walk along the Han River. Laura and I split a omurice and mandu, Sheila had kimbap, and Jordan tried spicy chicken rice. We then met up with Sheila’s friend Aron and started our walk. This walk was more like a hike. The riverfront was beautiful if smoggy because of the pollution.

Around noon, I split off in order to purchase shoes (because mine had split the day before). Jordan, Sheila, Aron, and Laura headed for the Korean War Memorial. On my way to the subway station, I chanced upon the Korean National Museum which turned out to be free! The building was beautiful and had a pond outside.

After wandering through the museum, I headed to Dongdaemun to buy a pair of shoes. Doota Mall was a bit out of my price range but I had a great ice cream there. I ended up heading to Migliore, an indoor marketplace, and bought a pair of boots, that, as Laura mentioned, looked almost exactly the same as my original.

After coming home and resting for a bit, Laura, Jordan and I headed for a jjimjilbang, or a traditional Korean spa. It was Laura and Jordan’s first time at a nude spa and we met up to explore the rest of Siloam Sauna complex after we bathed. It was five floors and had restaurants, ping-pong tables, nap rooms, and movie rooms. As Laura mentioned, you could really live there. Rejuvenated, we met up with Sheila to have a dinner of noodles and dumplings.

We then headed home with the intention of sleeping but instead watched some Pixar short films, Thai Life Insurance commercials, and comedy skits before actually heading to bed.

We realize this is more than a week overdue. But a post is better than no post!

The weekend before we got started with classes, we had a chance to 1) arrive in Korea and 2) explore our surroundings!

Since first person is a bit confusing for two people, we decided that Jordan would use regular font and Sheila would use italics.

Airport

Laura, Emily, and I all arrived in the airport at around the same time, and so we decided to meet up and get a ride to our apartment together. On our groupchat, we decided that we’d meet up at Gate B. After around 30 minutes of waiting at Gate B, Emily messaged the groupchat asking where I was, because she was also at Gate B. However, after walking around the area, we couldn’t seem to find each other, and so we just planned to meet each other at the Bus Terminal. Emily said, “I’m at Bus 24, let’s meet there”. That seemed like a really long ways away based on how far apart the buses were for me, but I proceeded to walk towards what I thought was Bus 24 anyways. It wasn’t until I was at Bus Area 14, the furthest bus I could find, that we realized we were at two completely different terminals, and decided to meet up later. With the help of airport strangers and my extensive training in charades, I was on my way to our apartment.

Hiking Namsan Tower

The next morning, jet lag kicked in and I woke up around 5:30. From the apartment window I could see 남산 (Namsan) and the glimmer of a sun soon to rise. It only took a split second to decide to go on an early morning hike. Emily decided to go back to sleep (she had high altitude sickness from Peru), but Laura and Jordan took me up on the idea of climbing Namsan and we all headed out in the frigid January morning. We made our way past the early morning paper delivery people and women setting up street food stands, past the closed pet stops and a cultural center. The guard at the entrance of the cultural center asked us why we wanted to hike Namsan, when it would take us an hour and a half to hike in the cold weather.

We shrugged it off (after all, we were scrappy young folk) and found out that what appeared to be a straight path up the mountain was in fact a fairly squiggly path with a lot of switchbacks. It took us an hour, which was longer than expected, and we were quite out of breath we reached the top (we ran up the last 200 steps which was a really dumb idea in heavy jackets). But the view was well worth it.

From that vantage point we could see 북한산 (Bukhansan) to the north, 한강 (Han River) towards the south, and a sprawling mat of apartments heading off in all directions. We could even make out our apartment in the tangle of buildings and roads.

It was a good start to our first day.

Daiso / Yongsan Electronics Market / Farmer’s Co-op

One of the biggest tasks to get done after arriving in Korea was to get materials for teaching, so we started off our second day by heading to 다이소 (Daiso). For those that don’t know, Daiso is a wonderful place where you can find most common items for less than $5. It’s basically Korea’s version of a dollar store, with more selection and more floors (ours was 5 floors!). After getting most of our materials, we headed directly outside the entrance for the most important material of all: cardboard boxes. After some charades and embarrassment, we walked away from Daiso with a healthy amount of cardboard boxes, also making sure to pick them up outside stores whenever we would see them.

Shortly after dropping off materials at the apartment, we had our first meeting with a teacher at Yeomyung. It was great to finally see the school, after hearing about it for so long and not having a satisfying mental image of it. Sheila did most of the talking (I would say that the science teacher did most of the talking), and after setting up the classroom and dropping off materials (the non-exhaustive list includes: 20 Google Cardboards, 9 spectroscopes courtesy of 3.091, several bags of pipe insulators, 10 diy cameras, a 3D printer, 4 hot glue guns, and other miscellaneous electronics and crafts items), we made our way to pick up more materials.

The next stop on our list was the Yongsan Electronics Market; this is one of the world’s largest electronics markets,  where you can find pretty much anything that uses electricity, so we figured we could probably find the small components we needed for our workshops. The first shop we ended up in was less than ideal; the only things he had that we needed were 9V batteries and cheap headphones. He told us that each battery was $5, which seemed absurd; however, not knowing what the market price was in Korea, we haggled our way down to $3 per battery. After a short trip to another store with a much wider  selection, we saw the same batteries we’d just bought, except for $1 apiece. Sheila is still a bit salty, but at least this electronics shop had enough to cover the rest of our supplies.

Then we went hunting for bananas for the suturing activity on biology day and cake mix for the electricity day. We walked into a nearby 농협 (Nonghyup) market, where we discovered tubs of shrimp paste, crates of Asian pears, and vats of live fish straight from the sea. The lady at the market told us that as a Korean farmer’s co-op, they only sold Korean products— i.e. no bananas. We ended up getting 호떡 (Hotteok) mix and sausages instead. And a bunch of rice cakes.

Needless to say we passed out when we got back to the apartment.

Going to the Palace

On Sunday morning Laura came up with a list of things to do in Seoul. Emily had already done those things, so she went to get stuff for family members at 동대문 시장 (Dongdaemun market). Jordan, Laura and I took the subway to 경복궁 (Gyeongbokgung Palace), where we saw a bunch of tourists dressed up in 한복 (Hanbok) and taking selfies.

For lunch, we walked into a hole in the wall restaurant serving a variety of 찌게 (jjigae), where Jordan and Laura tried 황태찌게 (hwangtaejjigae) for the first time. Laura really enjoyed it. Jordan had been a vegetarian since summer and unfortunately the fish didn’t agree with his stomach.

Outside the palace area we ran into a political protest in the public square. Despite the almost militaristic flag waving and patriotic music blaring from speakers, everything seemed under control. We didn’t feel unsafe at all.

Mural Village

On Sunday, we decided  to visit the 이화 (Ihwa) Mural Village. For those who don’t know, a mural village is an  area in the city where many of the buildings have murals painted on the outside, and people frequently spend hours there taking pictures with friends. I consider the visit a success:

After taking pictures around the murals, Laura made excited eye contact with one of the restaurant owners out on the street, who quickly ushered us inside for some Hottaek. The elderly lady running the store spoke to us in both Korean and Japanese, and made it well worth the visit.

Insadong

We somehow walked from Ihwa mural village to Insadong, a lively marketplace in Korea with a bunch of restaurants and crafts stores alongside a pedestrian friendly street. This is where we gave in to our impulse buying urges and bought a bunch of cheap tea cups, luxury Jeju green tea items, and confectionery. Then we had some really good food at a traditional restaurant (our bowls of 비빔밥 (bibimbap) were sizzling hot!!!)

Prepping

With the weekend coming to an end, and the realization that we’d be leading a classroom in the very near future looming over our heads, we each spent a bit of time prepping our materials for the week. We all worked a bit more on our slides to make them extra clear, and practiced our lab activities for good measure. I personally felt pretty nervous; I was still unsure about the language barrier, how well they would understand my lesson, and how much they would even like my labs. I was looking forward to the next day, when we’d actually get to meet the students, and get a better idea of the audience.

Thank you for bearing with us this very very very very ] late and long post!

P.S. Jordan’s vegetarianism through the days:

Friday:

Jordan @ the Japanese restaurant: “Oh. I’m vegetarian. Can you ask if the broth is made of meat?” Waiter [in Korean]: “There’s fish. That should be fine, right?” Sheila: “Just get the miso soup.”

Saturday:

Jordan @ the café: “Could I have the mushroom soup?”  Waitress: “There’s some meat in the broth.” Jordan: “Oh. Never mind. I’ll just get the blueberry waffles.”

Jordan @ the 찌게 place: “Guys, I think I might have to be pescetarian.”

Jordan @ the chicken and beer place: “I’m down.”

And with that Jordan eats like the rest of us.  Who knew that it would be hard to be vegetarian in Korea?!?

Today was probably the most polluted day we’ve had so far in Korea. On our way to school, I mistook the sun for the moon. The students and we were very tired the entire day as well.

We started these two weeks with a roster of sixteen students. Two left–Daniel is getting surgery this week and Emma is starting her animal husbandry internship. Three more were sick today and one didn’t show up, so we began the day with a grand total of ten students. We started the day with turtle. We programmed for an hour with blocks and then with Python. During this point in the day, most students were actually pretty engaged with Python and some even worked through the break!

After lunch, we learned about the Internet. Bill also left for math camp and so we only had nine students in the afternoon and I spent the end of lunch frantically editing lesson plans. We started by playing three rounds of battleship. During the first round, the students played one another normally in a tournament style. During the second round, the students couldn’t speak to one another and could only exchange slips of paper. In the third, we passed around these slips of paper. This game was used to get students used to the idea of routers to pass information.

We then headed down to the computer lab to do some Scratch. This was probably the low of the day and many students were pretty tired and some fell right asleep. Steve, who had spent all of last night up gaming, started snoring at his computer. We headed back upstairs and played a round of ninja as a morale booster. We then ended the day by simulating the Internet with a candy passing game where students acted as both clients and routers. At least Jarvis was wowed by the concept of the Internet, which, honestly, made the entire rest of the day better.

Our initial plan had been to order in pizza and collapse. Instead, we stopped at a halal restaurant on our way down the mountain. Honestly, the pizza was too cheesy but the chocolate milk was great. We then headed home, bought some face masks for the pollution and collapsed.

It’s the last day of our first week! Each day has felt so incredibly long, but this week has just flown by! The progress made by each student within a single week has far exceeded my expectations. By sitting at the same tables throughout the week, we have been able to bond with those students and get them engaged in our activities.

For example, Jerry, one of our students, sat through the entire first day staring at his phone, not engaging with any of us. Many of the other students followed along with our activities, but remained reserved and quiet. But by the last day, easygoing conversations flowed between us and the students, and Jerry actively participated in every activity.

Today, we had a hackathon day, in which we had planned various building challenges such as spaghetti tower building, egg drop, and rube goldberg. We started the day with the floor is lava activity, and the students had a blast maneuvering around obstacles and passing floor mats to each other to jump forward. The rest of the activities flew by as the students focused on making their contraptions, wanting to be the winner of each challenge.

We also built our own structures to motivate the students and give them ideas, but we mostly did it for fun. Fun fact: teachers make mistakes too! For the spaghetti building challenge, I tried making my own tower, but sadly, it flopped. Results shown below 🙂

Unfortunately, today was the last day for two of our students: Daniel and Emma, two bright, funny characters that brought much enthusiasm to our classroom. I’ve already written about Emma but here’s some more 🙂

Emma: She always had a bright smile on her face and is an incredibly sweet person. She participated in every activity and tried using the English words we taught whenever she could. Whenever she would finish a project or win a prize, she would throw her arms up and do a little dance in her seat. Her infectious laughter always made me smile, and we will all miss her next week.

Daniel: If we ever wanted Daniel to do something, the promise of chocolate always got him going. Sometimes, he would rush through an activity and run up to Emily asking for chocolate. We once had a microscope activity in which the best photo would win a prize. He would get an image, hurriedly take a photo, then rush to Jordan yelling “Teacher! Teacher! Look at my photo!” Once, I helped him focus on a slide of a cheek cell, and he came over with his phone and proceeded to take a photo without looking into the microscope. I encouraged him to take a look first, but he responded “it’s ok! I can see it through my phone!” before rushing off again to Jordan. What a character!

Team Adventures

Street food dinner in Myeongdong! The streets are filled with food stalls, each selling unique dishes. We wandered past each stall, pausing to take in the delicious aromas. We all got different things so that we could share, family style. And the food was so good! Can’t wait to go back again!

On the subway, we ran into the most adorable family from Dubai. Our team multilingual, Sheila, started conversing with this family in Arabic, and the entire time, the 5-year-old son kept smiling at Emily before rushing up at one point to hug her. Typical Emily story. It was so cute!! He then gave the rest of us hugs as well. That entire interaction made my day — a spontaneous, lively conversation with a family we met entirely by chance on the subway.

We later met up with other GTL Korea people in Gangnam. I thought Myeongdong was pretty crowded, but Gangnam was on a whole different level. The main street branched off into multiple side streets, each filled with restaurants and shops. The multitudes of well-dressed people and loud atmosphere was pretty overwhelming, but it was really fun hearing about the experiences of the other teams here in Korea.

We had a great first week and can’t wait for the next week!

Laura

This morning was such a hectic mess — running across the street to grab a quick breakfast, rushing back to the apartment with a plastic bag of packaged food, and juggling way too many cardboard boxes of various sizes out of the apartment into a taxi. I feel like our experiences with taxi drivers in Seoul haven’t been the best, but today was good! We usually get confused side looks or passive-aggressive comments from our bulky suitcases of materials or ridiculous amounts of used cardboard.

I kicked off the morning session with a lesson on kinematics and a quick activity that required basic calculations. Some of these students had not ever seen these equations before, so it was exciting helping them through the activity and witnessing their reactions of amazement as their projectiles landed on the calculated targets. We then played an estimation game, and the students had a great time guessing answers to questions like: If you ate 10 hotteok, how many kilometers could you run? To finish the session, the students built pencil trebuchets.

Jordan taught the afternoon session focused on aeroastro concepts. The students had such a blast making different paper airplanes to throw at a hoop across the room. Next, the students made their own quadcopters to fly around the room. One student, Jarvis, was so excited for the activity that he hurriedly cleared his desk of his papers once Jordan mentioned quadcopters. It’s so awesome to see that kind of enthusiasm from the students. We finished with making vortex cannons from the multitude of cardboard boxes that we had, and the students went around the room, hitting their boxes in their classmates faces. It was pretty funny to watch!

Student Highlights

Emma

Charades really can go a long way when the students have limited English and I have very limited Korean. Emma and I have been having great conversations just through making large gestures and occasionally pulling out Google Translate. She’s under 5 feet, wants to join the army, loves apink, has an internship in husbandry, and reminds me of Lilo from Lilo & Stitch. She has such a sunny personality and she comes to class each day with so much enthusiasm and cheerfulness.

Jarvis

Regardless of the activity, Jarvis has such a willingness to learn and an enthusiasm about anything STEM. When I taught about CAD and 3D printing, he was the first one to ask about the printer and spent lab time browsing through CAD libraries to find inspiration. He is incredibly efficient and is usually the first one to get through each activity.

Grace

Wow! This girl has such a bubbly, loving personality, and my daily conversations with her always make me smile. She has so many dreams for her future — she wants to speak in front of the UN, go to college in the US, study environmental science and sustainability to save the planet, learn English well, and so much more! Today, she gave each of us a paper heart, and that made my day 🙂

Team Adventures

We ate dinner at this amazing korean BBQ restaurant with so many delicious side dishes, large portions of yummy meat, and super friendly staff. I’m still surprised as to how we demolished the entire meal. I think our dinners make up some of my favorite memories with my team because we share really funny and personal stories with one other. I’m learning new things about them and life in general every day! Like “the cat’s meow” means something is cool or in style. I had never heard of that before!

Next adventure: playing in a playground and finding interesting ways with using the outdoors workout equipment. There was this wheel contraption, and Jordan decided to climb onto it and have Emily spin the wheel. Emily and I had some failed attempts trying to swing back and forth on this leg swing thing, and we have some really funny videos of that 🙂

We had one more failed attempt of the night. While prepping for our egg drop activity, Emily adamantly asserted that eggs cannot be broken when squeezed, but as she was saying it, she broke the egg on the first try. The shocked look on her face was so incredibly funny, and we all broke out in uncontrollable laughter.

I cannot imagine being here with anyone else. I have been with these three for every second of every day, and my time in Seoul so far has been one of the best experiences in my life. Can’t wait for more adventures and laughs to come!

Laura