Layah A. Khalif

In my first introductory Biological Engineering course, also known as “The Playground Course,” our main objective was to gain exposure and gets hands-on experience with 3D Software, Autodesk Inventor. We were to use the skills that we learned in class to construct and assemble a playground design. A design of which that would be realized into a physical design at a local elementary school in the Eastern Baton Rouge Parish where play areas were lacking or absent. In conjunction with creating the playground design, we became involved in VIPS (Volunteers in Public Schools) and served as Math Friends to the kids that would ultimately receive the finalized playground design through VIPS’s Everybody Counts program. Throughout the semester, I was a Math Friend to a third-grade student that needed help specifically with her multiplication and division skills. On a weekly basis, I met my student and made worksheets for us to do during her lunch break consisting of both multiplication and division practice problems. By the end of the semester, my student and her teacher expressed that due to my help, she had become more comfortable tackling more complicated math problems with the skills I showed her and the practice we completed together. When given the “pre-assessment” worksheet I generated for her during our first meeting as a “post-assessment” during our last meeting, she went from getting 7 questions incorrect to only getting 3 questions incorrect. This S-L course not only allowed me to explore, in a rather unintuitive way, how the engineering design process integrates itself into everyday life, but also allowed me to, once again, integrate myself into the Baton Rouge community in a very impactful way.