These past few months have been unlike any other. To summarize this time I would use the words: tragedy and discovery. Unfortunately, the pain of death has struck my closest family multiple times consecutively. This shattered my world. A great cloud drifted into my atmosphere and I could no longer see past it. But slowly, people, experiences, and time poked sunlight in through my storm. I have started to truly appreciate the impact of both the arts and sciences bring to life. One thing any individual who has experienced grief will understand is that there is no handbook to process death. Every experience is different and there is no one way to process this slur of feelings. Personally, I could not fully express the words, emotions, and moments I was going through without utilizing art. I wrote poems upon poems and created art out of anything I could use- jewelry, calendars, or anything I felt resonated. It was a safe space for me, and an outlet to say what words can't.
While art helped me process my feelings, science helped me move forward. My entire world and way of life changed so simply imaging a future seemed so impossible. That is until I joined the Summer Physics Camp for Young Women (see: here ). Joining this camp implanted structure into my life and from talking to so many accomplished individuals in STEM fields made me optimistic about my future and reminded me that everything will eventually get better one way or another. This camp helped me remember who I am even while seeing through fogy eyes and I will be forever grateful to the many mentors, speakers, organizers, and friends this camp introduced me to. Along with the SPCYW, this internship has also aided me in my journey with grief. The wonderful people in this apprenticeship have ben so kind and patient with me and have helped given me so many opportunities, such as working with Dr. Nicole Lloyd Ronning and the Space Messenger VR team.
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In the Space.com article Why does NASA let male astronauts stay in space longer than females?, John Arnest writes about the reason behind this question as well as the equality issues posed alongside it and the steps NASA is taking to eliminate this divide. Cancer is, understandably, a major concern both for astronauts and average individuals alike, with the key separation within this fear being the exposure amount. On earth, we are shielded by both our magnetosphere and atmosphere, keeping our radiation exposure to a minimum, something that can be mainly blocked by sunscreen and a nice wide brimmed hat. But, astronauts aren't so lucky. In space they are constantly exposed to high levels of radiation. Out of concern for their astronauts, NASA set a career exposure radiation which once you cap out, essentially ends your career of space expeditions. This is completely understandable as a safety and ethics issue, but why is there a difference between men and women? Women have been proved to be more susceptible to radiation than their male counterparts and therefore had a lower radiation cap, limiting their careers greatly. NASA is trying to address this issue by leveling out the caps for men and women. They are still juggling with how to extend women's careers while still holding health issues in mind. Even so, this is a great step in the direction leading us to equality. As a young women in STEM, it is so important to me to see advancements in the equality between men and women in many fields, especially those related to space/space exploration. This article provided hope for me as well as many other women with the space exploration field in mind for future possible careers and pointed out the importance of striving for equality in all fields.
find the article here! https://www.space.com/why-astronauts-radiation-levels This month we focused on learning how to navigate the mapping program ArcGIS. The first time I had heard of this program was through my friend, a senior at Furman University majoring in political sciences. She had used the program in her environmental studies and expressed excitement that I was learning the site since it has a bit of a learning curve. I experienced this learning curve which is when I fully appreciated having John DiRuggiero as an instructor, Along my fellow apprentices, we took John's course and learned how to create fully thorough maps including digital landscaping for things such as city design, how to pin places or areas and include photos and descriptions, how to design maps, along with how to utilize all of the sites possibilities. Along with learning how to curate maps, we learned how to create article like story maps where we learned techniques such as implanting photos, videos, and links.
A wonderful kickstart to the STEM Arts Lab internship- a course on web design and creation! This course was taught by the lovely Jennifer Case-Nevarez, Director of Community Learner Network. Within this segment of the internship, we attended classes with the final goal of building a personal website. As a team, we first learned the basics of the website building appliance-weebly. We learned the basics- how to build and create pages, as well as how to troubleshoot if anything goes wrong. Then we learned to work with pages and add elements such as social media contact buttons and how to import hyperlinks. Then, after spending time to individually create, design, and refine our websites we then launched them and shared them with the team. Here, we got feedback from both the instructors and peers in order to perfect our sites. Of course, my final product was to create this website and start up a new instagram account to connect with the STEM world in a different way. You can find this account and contact me at megan.odom1.
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