Errrr… then a random pandemic comes along and all of a sudden, your well-made plans are no longer viable.

At this point, you can either bang your head on your desk and lament about the unfairness of all that wasted planning (not recommended).

Or, you can do what our office did and rethink and retool the activities you had planned (Highly recommended and I will tell you why.)

Every year for the past 6 years, graduate students in the Office of Teaching and Learning have planned an event called Avenues of Scientific Discovery.

If you haven’t heard about Avenues of Scientific Discovery, I would suggest you read our post titled, Avenues of Scientific Discovery: A must attend event for high schoolers. This event is a wonderful introduction to the various STEM-related degree programs, fields of study, and career options. Students who attend this event learn about many career fields they may not have been aware of. Plus, they get to do cool experiments.

When the pandemic hit, we were forced to cancel the 2020 Avenues of Scientific Discovery event because all North Dakota public schools went to a distance-learning format which made it impossible to get students to come to our event. In 2021, we knew there was a very real possibility that getting groups of high schoolers to campus would not be possible. Yet, cancelling the event two years in a row did not seem like a good solution.

There had to be a way to offer similar content.

We handed our two graduate students, Amy Tichy and Holly DeVries both Master’s in counseling students, the task of figuring out how to offer this awesome event but in a package that was accessible and convenient. Those graduate students did what most graduate students do and quickly developed a plan.  That plan was ambitious. They decided to create a series of videos that can be used as a teaching tool in your classroom.

They recruited students from various graduate programs to create videos that demonstrate the type of learning that happens in their program.

After watching the first three videos created, I quickly remembered that these students are in the generation of video makers.

Our graduate students might be on to something here.

The videos were well thought out and are quite good. When you view these videos, you will see not only the passion these students have for their program of study, but also the ingenuity and creativity that went into the production of each video.

I mentioned before that I would explain why it is a good idea to revisit and retool your events when the unexpected forces a cancellation.

In our case, the Avenues of Scientific Discovery is a good event, but in rethinking this event, we have now opened it up to students nationwide. We have also created another resource for teachers to use in their classrooms, which saves you time.

Rethinking an event is something that should be done periodically to ensure the event is still relevant and is offered in the best way possible. I believe this pandemic has forced us to put together a complementary event that will serve many more students and teachers.

With that, we are proud to announce our latest YouTube playlist titled, STEM @ NDSU: Looking to the Sky.

In this playlist, NDSU Graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and math fields have developed videos for teachers to use as a classroom resource.

Each of these videos shares information relevant to STEM developments in our world, our initial launch focuses on the sky. More subject areas will be created in the 2021-2022 school year.

The videos are free and available for you to use with your students.

This playlist is available on the NDSU Office of Teaching and Learning YouTube page. In an upcoming blog post we will provide ideas on how you can use these videos in your classroom. Also, be watching for the Visual Arts @ NDSU playlist, coming in Spring Semester 2022.

If you teach a specific content area and would like our graduate students to create a video on how their program of study relates to your content area, please let us know in the comments below. Our graduate students love to know people are interested in their program of study and this provides them with experience in presenting their research.

A win for all involved!

Watch for details about the return of our in-person Avenues of Scientific Discovery event to be held February 11, 2022 (Fingers crossed the pandemic allows the show to go on this year!).

About the Author

Connie Jadrny, is the marketing and public relations coordinator for the North Dakota State University (NDSU) Office of Teaching and Learning.

In more than 15 years at NDSU, Jadrny has learned a lot about higher education.  She curates this blog to allow all individuals to continue learning about higher education and best practices in teaching.

Let’s learn together!