The Adera Lab regularly engages in outreach activities with a particular eye on encouraging high school and pre-college students to consider science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. We are also motivated to reach and engage a broader public audience.
Sankofa Project
The Sankofa Project, which is designed to cultivating socially conscious mechanical engineers at the University of Michigan, is a two-part cultural and historical experience that focuses on exposure and education of Mechanical Engineering students about the history of black people in this country. Each part features a field trip hosted by a black cultural institution and a group discussion to debrief the learning experience. Part I consists of a visit to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, which is located in Detroit inside the city’s Midtown Cultural Center. Part II, which is named Journey to Freedom Tour, consists of a visit to the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County inside the Byrd Center in addition to a bus tour of important historical landmarks in the Underground Railroad (for example, the site where one of Michigan’s first abolitionist newspapers was printed). Besides these two organized visits, the Sankofa Project organizes Meet & Greet and Media Night events where students, faculty, and staff watch movies that are centered on the intersection of technology and social justice. Past movie nights feature Roots TV Mini Series 1977, Toxic Cost of Going Green, Blood Cobalt: The Congo’s Dangerous and Deadly Green Energy Mines, and The Cobalt Challenge-The Dark Side of the Energy Transition. To maximize the impact of these activities, the Sankofa Project coordinates the timing of these events with NSBE and BSU (Black Student Union). Due to its popularity, the Sankofa Project is now in its second year.
Engineering OnRamp
Engineering OnRamp STEM Outreach Program: a robust K-12 outreach program that provides summer and year-round activities for high school students from under-represented communities.
In the 2023 summer, Prof. Solomon Adera gave a lecture for the K-12 engagement session.
Xplore Engineering
In the 2023 summer (July 13-14/2023), we participated in the Xplore Engineering workshop and delivered demonstrations and hands-on experiments for 4th–7th grade students from all 50 states. Xplore Engineering is a 2-day science-themed conference-like engineering STEM exploration annual event at UM targeting young children. Our workshop titled “SUPERHYDROPHOBIC” was designed to teach the children the concept of surface tension and wetting schience (hydrophilic versus hydrophobic). The goal of this demonstration was to teach young children the effects of surface tension in our daily lives and in the world around us by guiding them through a series of hands-on experiments. The participating students were able to articulate the meaning of superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic, how to make superhydrophobic surfaces at home, why water striders can walk on water, why paper boats self-propel when a drop of detergent is added in water, and why raindrops and bubbles are spherical in shape. Some of the photos taken at the summer 2023 event are shown below.
Summer student research programs
In the 2022 summer, we hosted a high school senior Amira Hamilton from East Kentwood High Michigan through the SHARP program, and a college junior Miles Phillips from Howard University in our lab. Amira worked on developing a Schlieren visualization for vapor condensation. Miles worked on experimentally characterizing droplet impact, spreading, and retraction.
In the 2021 summer, we hosted a high school senior Nikye Nixon in our lab. We plan to continue such engagement in summer 2022 and beyond to highlight the importance of STEM education in engineering.
