In the morning we toured Karim's (our host teacher's) private University. He introduced us to the president, director, and many professors. They have a large engineering lab and modern biotech and chemistry labs. After all the tours and introductions my partner Stacey and I gave a lecture on nanotechnology with an interactive lesson on hydrophobicity. The students really enjoyed it and we made great new connections. Thank you @nano-link!
I think it is great that you are helping to teach students all around the world, and what similar interests we have! I learned in Spanish class how people from Cuba can share our interests, and we can be so similar, and yet so far away. How we can live thousands of miles away from one another, and still be virtually the same. This has really helped.
ReplyDeleteI am so pleased to hear that reading these blog posts has helped you to focus in on how you and the students from Morocco (and around the world) are similar. I agree that it was terrific to hear about Mrs. Landry teaching students in Morocco about nonotechnology and I love the fact that she had an interactive lesson as well (of course, I am not surprised). I had to look up hydrophobicity because I wasn't certain of the meaning. I would have guessed that it meant fear of water. When I looked it up Merriam-Webster defined it as "lacking affinity water." I love learning new things!
DeleteI think this is what really distinguishes the idea of ignorance in the U.S. No, I don't think it's necessarily the U.S.'s fault, but so many young people believe that Morocco is an out-of-touch country. I remember when one of my friends received a response to their letter, the person who wrote her back gave her their facebook in order to establish a better connection. To this, another one of my friends was surprised and said, "They have facebook in Morocco?" The reality is there are parts of Morocco in which they are as state of the art as the U.S. But there are also parts of Morocco that are impoverished, just like some parts of the U.S.
ReplyDeleteOver the summer I had the opportunity to stay at Stanford for a week. It was a great experience to be on a college campus. Walking around in that environment can be motivating, and it helped me set goals. We are fortunate that we have so many choices in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteI feel so dumb for saying this but Morocco is probably one of the last places I would guess would be interested in these kinds of things. It's important that we talk to other countries about these things so that way we get different types of solutions to solve our problems. I wish we could all get along so that way we could share ideas this easily.
ReplyDeleteThis just goes to show that although countries such as Morocco are not recognized as being as developed as the United States, they are really not that far behind from a technological and scientific standpoint. It is interesting to know that the people over in Morocco have very similar interests and abilities, and that it really is not that much different from the United States. In my Spanish class, we discuss about the infrastructure and education of Spanish-speaking countries, and how even though they are far away, they have similar beliefs and capabilities. It is awesome that you are taking the time to teach the students in Morocco, as it helps them to learn about topics such as nanotechnology, which are not commonly discussed in some parts of the world.
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