JKHA middle school faculty member Srividhya Sundaram was one of eight selected as a Science Friday educator—2018, among a record number of applicants nationwide. Science Friday is the trusted source for news and stories about science and has been honored with dozens of awards for their high quality science journalism. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in science and a master’s degree in educational leadership, Sundaram later joined NASA’s Endeavor program and was certified by NASA as STEM Teacher Leader.

The Science Friday Educator Collaborative conducts a search for creative, highly motivated and dedicated STEM educators to participate in the collaborative development of new multimedia-driven education resources. The selected Science Friday educators work with the Science Friday team to produce and share compelling approaches to STEM education. As a part of this amazing opportunity, Sundaram committed to an intensive month-long training and development cycle with fellow educator collaborators, Science Friday staff, and expert colleagues in the fields of science, education, media and publishing. In the future, Sundaram will be field testing some of the wonderful resources created by other educators in her cohort.

As part of the collaborative,Sundaram developed a resource focusing on paper engineering, renewable resources and circuitry for grades six to eight. Students break apart and study circuits of inexpensive solar-powered toys and lanterns, then reverse-engineer a lantern that turns on and off by simple motions of the user. Students optimize their design for use by communities without reliable access to electricity.