The third annual EdTech in the Bend on August 3 was an e-learning conference designed to help area teachers learn more about educational technology and ways to incorporate it into their classrooms. ND Energy once again supported the South Bend Community School Corporation’s effort through silver-level sponsorship and by offering “Google Sheets: Great Graphing Made Easy,” a session on using Google sheets to create various types of graphs.

Graduate students Jeffrey DuBose (Kamat Group) and Samuel Perry (Burns Group) helped participants find data online showing energy usage by various cities to create a table in Google sheets. From that, teachers were able to create various types of graphs, including geo-charts. DuBose and Perry led a conversation about ways to use this collaborative tool across the curriculum, while including energy and other science-related topics into their lessons.

Prior to this experience, over half of the group had rarely used Google sheets. All 17 participants plan to incorporate this new skill into future lesson plans. Feedback included “You did a great job of walking us through sheets for teachers at all levels” and “Having us create our own chart with you was helpful as well”.

While providing educational outreach to area schools, ND Energy is able to engage graduate and undergraduate students with local community members. These encounters offer opportunities for students to build soft skills, such as communicating science and engineering topics at a level appropriate for the audience. Similar outreach events sponsored by ND Energy involving students from Notre Dame include Science Alive and Art 2 Science.   

ND Energy is a University Research Center whose mission is to build a better world by creating new energy technologies and systems and educating individuals to help solve the most critical energy challenges facing our world today. For more information, visit the ND Energy website at energy.nd.edu or contact Barbara Villarosa, Business and Communications Program Director, at bvillaro@nd.edu or 574-631-4776