I happened to just finish my history class and looked through my agenda to figure out what I needed to do when I saw I had written “Climate change with doris sung 5:00pm to 6:00pm”. I had written it down weeks before as a possible networking event and completely forgot about it! Luckily, I made it in time and I was very happy cause it was an event I was very interested in.

Screenshot from the event showing the Smithsonian Learning Lab website homepage.

The event began with Tess, Alexa, and Tiffany introducing  “Smithsonian Learning Lab“, which is a resource educators may use to teach about climate change, sustainability, or any other subject they choose. They also brought up you can find case studies on certain topics which are located on the Cooper Hewitt learning lab profile page which I thought was great. What I was really happy to hear about is they have activities students can do such as creating a “green roof” which I was actually researching for a past project!

After this, Doris Sung was introduced and she showed us a short video of what she does and how her exciting new technology works. She then spoke in more detail explaining what type of materials she used such as “Thermobimetal” and why. “Thermobimetal” is basically two metals with different alloys that are laminated together. From what I understand, what makes the material change or curl is one of the metals is more susceptible to heat than the other.

To explain it in a more hands-on way Doris showed us simple replicas we could experiment with ourselves using paper, patterns, and other easy-to-find materials. All these instructions would be available on Cooper Hewitt’s Learning Lab profile page at a later date.

 

My question being answered during the event.

Towards the end of the event, we were able to ask Doris or the other speakers at the event questions and I was lucky enough to be picked! She answered my question and more with a detailed response I was very grateful.

 

 

As I was writing this post I looked up everyone that was a part of the event on LinkedIn and I was only able to message one of them but I followed the rest. I was happy to be able to message Tess and let her know I was thankful she picked my question to ask Doris Sung. I was also very impressed with her presentation skills, she spoke very confidently! Overall I was extremely happy to have attended and learned so much from Doris Sung and her associate Esther Ho. I’m thankful to the Cooper Hewitt team as well.