January: STEM SATURDAY: THE STEM OF MARDI GRAS

                                                     January Community Service Hours: 5 hours

Total Spring Community Service Hours: 5 hours



This past Saturday I kicked off service for the spring semester by volunteering at a Stem Nola event titled "STEM Saturday: the Art and STEM of Mardi Gras". STEM Global Action was founded by former tenured Tulane engineering professor Dr. Calvin Mackie (he is also actor Anthony Mackie's older brother!).  STEM NOLA is located in the Lower Ninth Ward and aims to bring extracurricular enrichment to the local community with free programs and events such as STEM Saturday. As a volunteer, I was assigned a group of three elementary and middle school-aged students, whom I guided through four different building activities: a simple circuit, a catapult, a rolling device, and a motorized miniature Mardi Gras float. The aim of the event was to capitalize on the excitement for the upcoming parade season and get students to associate STEM with different aspects of their lives outside of the classroom. The main event was the competition between the students for building the best-looking and most functional floats, and there was an ending celebration by a second line with Zulu Krewe members. 


Pictured above are some of my students' floats! - unfortunately, none of them won the $25 prize.

Below is a link to a video of the second line!

https://youtube.com/shorts/SUSpfUdYz2Y?feature=share

At the event, there was also a humanoid robot, Pepper, that was imported from France, which was very exciting and nostalgic for me because I met the original Pepper in Paris 10 years ago when I studied there (although I am pictured with the smaller robot in the photo below) . 


This volunteering event was my first Mardi Gras-associated activity this year, which is particularly exciting because this is my first year experiencing it not as an undergraduate at Tulane, which I think that experience is completely different from how many in New Orleans celebrate Mardi Gras. As part of my preparations I went to campus health uptown and procured a two-pack of Naloxone which I plan to keep on my person just in case there are situations in which someone near me needs it. We learned about Naloxone last semester in med pharm - it's a drug of choice for opioid overdose when the nature of the depressant drug is unknown. I believe having it on hand during Mardi Gras will be helpful because it has a very quick onset and could make a difference in someone's survival while waiting for EMS. 






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