Parnika Manocha
8:00 am MST
Good morning! I wake up bright and early at 8:00 a.m. MST for a productive day at Shad! I never would have thought that waking up this early would be this fun. I feel like there is just so much excitement and suspense for what I am going to open from the Shad Kit sent out to me! In the morning, I like to start off by getting ready, checking my Google calendar, and doing some early morning reflections in my Shad notebook 🙂.
9:00 a.m. MST
It is finally time to hop into the meeting. Our awesome facilitators usually have some great summer bops playing during the opening; it is a great way to brighten everyone’s mood as they join the meeting. At this time, you can expect everyone to be greeting each other, sharing some of the things they did after the program, and going over that day’s itinerary.
9:15 a.m. MST
Time to get our creative brains working because it’s design time! At ShadAnywhere, I have been able to make such great bonds with my design group members despite being online. Design sessions are where you and your group communicate and collaborate with each other to tackle a real-world problem. This year’s theme was all about green energy. The question that sparked our curiosity the most was “How might we help youth in Canada use solar and/or wind energy to power their electronic devices and gadgets?” To solve this problem, my group and I came up with designing more efficient solar panelled backpacks, phones and charging stations. The design sessions are definitely one of my favourite parts of the day because of how close I am with my amazing group members.
11:00 a.m. MST
Nutrition break time! The Shad program is extremely understanding when it comes to spending long days online, and for this reason, we get an hour break to ourselves. I usually take the lunch hour time to head downstairs, eat some delicious home cooked food and enjoy the sunshine outside. This time is also great for socialising with the other Shads on Google Chats. Our conversations vary from pets to robots to favourite snacks, it’s an amazing way to connect with your peers and facilitators.
Parnika interacting with fellow Shads on our digital ShadAnywhere campus
12:00 p.m. MST
At Shad, we meet experts with fascinating jobs in STEAM fields and it is really eye opening to see how far your passions can take you. One of the sessions that stood out to me the most was hearing from Dr. Shawna Pandya, an Astronaut and Medical Doctor! Hearing about a career path that involves both medicine and space really taught me that the sky is not the limit. Shad introduced me to a variety of talented people who have shown me the real-life applications of science and taught me a lot about critical thinking.
Another speaker that really touched me was Jeff Martin. In his webinar, he talked about how similar we are to one another, and yet discrimination persists in our society. This thought really opened my eyes because it showed me the power of having privilege. I have been more grateful about what I have in life and aspire to use my privilege to help those around me. Shad, to me, is a privilege that I could not be more thankful for. I want to use this asset to educate and inspire other youth in my community.
ShadAnywhere lecture with Jeff Martin
Lecture with Dr. Shawna Pandya
1:15 p.m. MST
I hop into my next session, ready for a hands-on activity. ShadAnywhere has done an AMAZING job at incorporating different learning styles to keep the program engaging. In one session, we delved deeper into biology, looking at things that cannot easily be seen with the naked eye. Our facilitator gave some of the Shads the opportunity to analyse their own cheek cells and learn some basic skills on nomenclature, and detailed sketches.
Foldscope used to assess cheek bacteria
2:15 p.m. MST
It’s community session time! Towards the end of the day, all the Shads and facilitators break out into different rooms where we all focus on mini projects to present to the whole community at the end. This gave us the opportunity to express our creativity, be unique, and show off our authentic personalities. I worked on creating weekly newsletters for our cohort while others created a monthbook, and even a Shad skit! The creativity truly never ends when you are having fun.
3:00 p.m. MST
It has been a long yet adventurous day at Shad. Each day goes by, and everything gets more and more exciting! I like to end my day by saying goodbye to all the Shads and facilitators for creating such an amazing atmosphere. After that, I go straight to my Shad notebook and jot down a few points that I enjoyed the most and ponder a few things that I felt like I could do better. It is amazing how this program changes you. I have really started taking all the advice from the speakers to heart and striving to become a better person every day!
The SparkFun Inventors activity. Shads used the RedBoard Qwiic, an Arduino compatible development board, to create code
