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The Nobel Explorers Brainstormer Badge

Sparking our inherent creative potential is essential for solving complex work and life-related problems that we encounter on an everyday basis. Unfortunately, the older we get, the less inclined we are to employ our creativity.

The issue gets even more complicated when we want to engage a whole team in this creative process. How do we make sure we have everybody’s ideas down? How do we make sure that there is one result out of this process that everybody feels passionate about? But most importantly, how do we make it a team process? How can we use everybody’s creativity to solve a complex issue and build strong relationships within a team instead of having everybody push for their version of the solution? (Does this sound familiar?)

We address this and more with our Nobel Explorers as part of our soft skills training in order to make sure they’re equipped to put their creativity into good practice and use it to answer complex questions.

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Creativity a skill utilized in one of the Explorers’ very first tasks – deciding the topic of their website – which requires brainstorming as a team. To earn this badge, Explorers must engage in a brainstorming activity, make sure to add as many ideas as they can, build off of each other’s ideas whilst being respectful of the ideas of others.

Solving any complex question becomes easier and more fun when we become more comfortable utilizing creativity and learning how to leverage it within a team. That’s why our Explorers learn about and earn this badge in the early part of the program.

Learn more about Daria.

How Does Nobel Explorers Help Your Child Build Confidence?

Confidence is something every parent wants for their children. However, confidence isn’t a sort of gift we can give them. It’s something that is built.

Carl Pickhardt says that a child who lacks confidence will be reluctant to try new or challenging things because they’re scared of failing or disappointing others. They may feel stressed, anxious, frustrated, etc. That’s why, besides other benefits, we want to emphasize Nobel Explorers’ ability to help build confidence. So how do we help?

Getting to the next developmental stage

Nobel Explorers relies on something called the zone of proximal development (ZPD). ZPD is Vygotsky’s term for:
The distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.

In other words, ZPD is the range of skills that a child can perform with assistance but can’t (yet!) perform independently. So what is our role?

Our experts guide students

This is where our experts come into it. By becoming a Nobel Explorer, your child gets a chance to work with a team of highly-qualified facilitators, who help to activate skills and guide the experience.
They provide instructions and tools to students, so while a child might not yet be capable of doing something on their own, they’re able to complete the task with the assistance of the skilled instructor.

HELP YOUR CHILD RISE TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Peer learning

During certain periods of a child’s life, especially the teenage years, they may look to their peers more than they look to adults. Peers can provide valuable knowledge and assistance but also provide a unique comfort level at this age. Therefore, our students don’t learn only from our experts, but also their peers!
In our online STEM camp, students teach and learn from each other. Every student is better at something than the others and knows things others don’t. So, while they’re doing their project, they share that knowledge and skills with other teammates.

Nobel Explorers’ journey in short

In Nobel Explorers, students develop their ideas, solve problems along the way, and generate a product to be proud of. How? At first, students are confronted with new tasks they can’t quite do easily on their own – challenges. Then our experts help them set their goals and provide the appropriate assistance that gives the student enough of a boost to achieve the task. Also, their teammates help them with things they still have trouble with, so everybody within the team acquires and masters new hard and soft skills.
However, as time passes, students need less and less assistance. Eventually, instructions can be removed and students are able to make a website (or to code/ design something else) by themselves. And that is when we achieve our goal – children become independent and comfortable in practicing gained skills!

Our interns made the awesome website!

Giving praise and badges

During the whole Nobel Explorers’ journey, students are welcomed to share their viewpoints and ideas and every one of them is valued. And we love to give them praise (they’ve certainly deserved it!) Not only every completed task but also every effort is followed by positive reinforcement. That makes our online STEM camp a safe and supportive environment for learning and helps a student feel proud of what they’ve achieved. And our favorite praise is badging! So every time our students gain new soft skills, we award them the appropriate badge. That helps them feel more sure of themselves and more confident in what they do.
And when they build confidence in what they’ve done, they feel more comfortable in showing it to others. So they present their project to other teams, families, and friends. In this way, they tame their fear of public speaking. And as the audience grows, their self-esteem and confidence grow!

 

badge

When our students master the skill of giving feedback, we award them this badge, Constructive Colonel. This time, we invite you to leave us feedback (comment below) and The Constructive Colonel is yours! 🙂

Benefits of Nobel Explorers’ Online Internship

Why should you choose a Nobel Explorers’ internship? No one could answer this question better than our interns themselves. That’s why we interviewed Michael, one of our interns, and here’s why he’d recommend this internship to his friends.

Flexibility and comfort

When you think about online internship, the most obvious first benefit is that you can work from the comfort of your home. This lets you save money for gas and any time that you’d spend on travelling. Also, you have complete control over your working environment.

Plus, with Nobel Explorers, there’s a flexible schedule, so you can organize your time and work however you want to. A flexible schedule means that you don’t miss out on anything important to you, whether it’s someone’s birthday or a basketball game you’re planning to watch.

Developing new skills

The goal of a Nobel Explorers’ internship is to teach interns the skills that lay the foundation for their careers.

On one side, they learn hard skills – STEM knowledge. These include web design, web coding, etc. On the other, they gain soft skills – skills that are highly sought-after by employers but are not job-specific. Some of these are teamwork, time management, problem-solving, and communication. Hard and soft skills go hand in hand and make NE interns future-ready!

Learning hard skills

You wonder why learning hard skills is emphasized? Friends of our interns didn’t have internships where they learned actual skills. They were doing a lot of manual work. As Michael said, the job of one of his friends was only to turn the computers on and off  all day. Sounds really boring, right? And we’re pretty sure his friend didn’t learn much.

Our internships are designed for our interns to work by themselves –  with the help of our hard-skills experts, of course. This way, Michael had a chance to be programming by himself although he’d never had training on javascript, node js, or any other programming language he was using. And today, Michael finds coding fun!

It’s like a puzzle, try to figure out the most efficient way to build something using the least amount of code.”

Website our interns made

The hard skills Nobel Interns Generation I learned during their online internship are website design and website coding. As time moved on, they became pretty comfortable, started to be more efficient, and ended up with an awesome website we couldn’t be more proud of!

Check out the awesome website our interns made

Soft skills

Besides these hard skills, they learned a lot more! Michael didn’t expect this at all! He thought that he’d just be coding, but he also learned soft skills. The two he found the most valuable are communication and teamwork skills.

Communication skills

Miscommunication can lead to frustration, missing meetings, as well as a less productive team, so communicating effectively is a vital skill to master. NE interns become good listeners and accomplished at explaining and clarifying their thoughts and ideas. The end result is the team accomplishes more work together than if they’d all worked alone.

Real Teamwork

In school, students learn teamwork but is it really teamwork? Michael said that whenever he had a group project he kind of hated it because his grades depended on how his team members behaved. So we asked him how the teamwork at Nobel Explorers differs from the teamwork in school.

I’ve never thought about teamwork the way Nobel thinks about it. I’ve never thought it was a positive thing.”

During his internship, Michael learned the importance of being able to work with other people. He found that part of working together is not just working with the perfect partner but working with people who aren’t perfect and learning how to deal with them. It’s important to learn how to talk to your teammates to make you all feel more comfortable and, of course, get a good result at the end.

Are soft skills soft?

When Michael was introduced to the term soft skills, he felt that designation didn’t really do justice to the value of these skills. It implies they’re not as important as hard skills, and therefore get little respect.

Hard skills make you qualified for the job, but soft skills are what helps you write your resume, interview to get that job, and help you stand out.

soft skills

We agreed that the term “soft skills” underplays their importance in the modern world. So we’re weighing in on the term – what do you think about teamwork skills? Maybe people skills? Or social skills?

Professional development

At Nobel Explorers, you have an opportunity to be part of a real software development team. Not many high-school students have this kind of experience. A lot of people have this chance only when they get their first job. Having this kind of experience can help you adjust to the work environment faster, get better insight into the workplace, and boost your confidence at work.
A real software development team is also an international team. Working within an international team means a lot when it comes to preparation for the future of work, as it seems more and more companies will be looking into remote work and international teams.

Skills transfer

Skills you learn at Nobel aren’t necessarily for work only– they can be very useful in your private life too.  It’s about how you communicate with other people, and that’s definitely important in every relationship we have. You learn how to improve your work when things don’t go well. Also, you learn how to plan your time and how to effectively split tasks up, and that’s the best way to avoid procrastination.

Which of these skills do you think is the most important? Leave us a comment!

 

If you like what you’ve read, we only have one more thing to say to you: We can’t wait to meet you!

 

Women in STEM: Five Inspirational Stories

Have you ever been negatively stereotyped for being a young woman in STEM? Unfortunately, you’re not the only one. The old stereotype of girls being bad at STEM is as alive as ever. A great way to put an end to this is to provide young women with role models who can motivate them to be persistent and succeed.

On this Business Women’s Day, we’re celebrating women in STEM who empower and motivate all girls and women who work (or dream about working) in STEM. We’re sharing the stories of five remarkable women who changed the world with their stories. We hope they’ll inspire you as they inspire us!

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin with microscope

Image: Jenifer Glyn/Wikimedia Commons

Rosalind Franklin studied physics and chemistry and later earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, which enabled her to travel and teach around the world. While working at King’s College, Cambridge, she spent hours studying DNA structure with X-ray diffraction. It was she who took a photo of DNA and proved it was a double helix.

Sadly, her achievement wasn’t acknowledged at that time. You wonder why? There is some controversy indicating that Francis Crick and James Watson used Franklin’s findings as theirs in their own publications. It was quite some time until she emerged from the shadow of these two powerful men and her contribution was fully recognized.

Radia Perlman

Radia Perlmand with book

Image: Wikipedia

We couldn’t imagine the world today without the internet, right? Well, if it weren’t for Radia Perlman, we might not have had it. The Mother of the Internet, as she’s called, developed the algorithm behind the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges. She also invented TRILL (TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) to correct the limitations of STP.

A wildly creative thinker, Dr. Perlman even developed a child-friendly programming language. She authored a textbook on networking and network security and holds more than 100 issued patents.

Mae C. Jemison

Mae Jemison jumping

Image: NASA

As a little girl, Mae Jemison loved science and stargazing and dreamed of going into space. That dream came true on September 12, 1992. She became the first African-American woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. There she conducted experiments on motion sickness, weightlessness, and bone cells.

As if that weren’t enough, Jemison is a dancer and holds nine honorary doctorates in science, engineering, letters, and the humanities. In 1993, she resigned from NASA and began her teaching career. Today, she is founder and president of two technology companies and focuses on improving healthcare in Africa and advancing technology in developing countries. Is there anything Mae can’t do? She’s truly inspiring!

Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton next to the pages of code

Image: Draper Laboratory

Talking about space, we mustn’t forget Margaret Hamilton, whose software sent Apollo 11 to the moon. Also, when errors occurred, the software she created managed to save the lives of the Apollo 11 astronauts – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Besides that, she was one of the first computer software programmers. She also coined the term software engineer.

Hamilton was a director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, and later became the founder and CEO of Hamilton Technologies, Inc. Hamilton was the recipient of various honors, including NASA’s Exceptional Space Act Award (2003). You’ve probably already seen the picture of her alongside Katie Bouman, when Katie took a picture of the black hole this year.

Cynthia Breazeal

Cynthia Breazeal with the robot she made

Image: Jibo

After seeing “Star Wars” for the first time as a young girl, Cynthia Breazeal began to dream of building personal robots. Guess what? She did it! Breazeal is a pioneer in Social Robotics and Human Robot Interaction.

She’s developed some of the world’s most famous robotic creatures – ranging from small hexapod robots to embedding robotic technologies into familiar everyday artifacts, and creating highly expressive humanoid robots and robot characters. Jibo, Kismet, and Leonardo are only some of the famous social robots she’s made.

And, one more thing…

Finally, we have one piece of advice for you or every young woman with dreams and goals seemingly out of reach. Never underestimate yourself! Arianne Hunter, a woman in STEM, explained her early self-doubts:

If I would’ve told myself five years ago that I  would have the number of publications, awards, and honors… I would have probably laughed hysterically. I would’ve thought it was impossible for a black female scientist to do those things.

And yet, today she holds a doctorate in Organic Chemistry/Molecular Pharmacology, is the founder of the nonprofit, “We Do Science, Too,” and has been recognized and awarded for her advocacy work for women and minorities in STEM.

 

CHOOSE A PROJECT AND CREATE YOUR OWN STEM STORY!

6 Fields Where Coding Comes in Handy

Today’s society keeps on raving about the importance of coding. “It’s the future!”, they insist, but you rarely hear why it’s the future or what kind of job it’s preparing you for. Sure, you’re sitting at a computer and writing code – but what for?

That’s where we come in! We’d like to help everyone interested in coding learn about all the different areas in which coding can come in handy. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How is coding even useful to me or anyone else and what can I do with it besides sit and type?”, this article is for you!

1. It’s All About the Design

Have you ever visited a website that was just a plain background with text on it? You weren’t really in awe of it and didn’t want to go back there unless you had to, right? To stop that from happening to your website – or some other you may simply be working on – you can use the magic (and science) of web design.

Any website, whether it be a cooking blog or Facebook itself, needs good design in order to be attractive – and highly functional – for its visitors. This is where coding meets art – you can combine and create endless versions of a single website until you’ve found the one that works and looks best.

If this is something your child might be interested in learning, enroll them in our online mini-project, “Coding & Web Design”. In only a week, they will learn how to build the entire website from scratch. They’ll be working in an international team from the comfort of their home, while creating a website that will go live at the end of the project!

2. Make Our Lives Easier with Robotics

You might have guessed this one already. The field of robotics would be impossible without the art of coding. Yes, I said art. Because, even though coding is a very exact science, if you find a fulfilling project in a field that interests you, you’re bound to become an artist. You need to always be coming up with creative ideas in order to make something that has not been done before – work. Today, we may think that inventing a phone is pure science, but Alexander Graham Bell probably thought of it in different terms.

Trial and error, and the joy of seeing your robot friend move and respond exactly the way you wanted it to once you get the code right – can you imagine anything better? Just take a look at what has already been accomplished in this field thanks to coding and the brilliant minds behind it:

3. Teach Artificial Intelligence to Think

Have you ever chatted with Cleverbot? Or Siri? Or Cortana? Those are all AI’sartificial intelligence programs. They are able to learn based on your answers, much like a child would when they are just starting to talk and ask questions.

However, they are still very basic in what they do – but AGI’s (Artificial General intelligences) are not. They are capable of what is referred to as deep learning and they are able to pass the coffee test. This is not a joke, I promise – it’s an interesting, yet very telling way of making sure your AGI is functioning at a human level.

4. Send People into Space

Yes, astronomy. NASA would have gone bankrupt decades ago if it didn’t have some of the brightest programmers in history working on its projects. Margaret Hamilton is one of them. She is a brilliant programmer, who created the software that put the first man on the Moon. [1] When Apollo 11 was reporting problems, her code was what made it possible for the Moon landing to happen. The software for this mission had thousands of lines of code – but don’t let that scare you! Margaret also had 400 people helping her with the software design, so she was never alone in it. [1]

Imagine being able to say one day that your code was the one that helped invent traveling through hyperspace! Why not? Once upon a time people thought that going to the Moon was impossible, too.

5. Help Psychologists with Their Numbers

This one might sound the weirdest of all. Aren’t psychologists supposed to be talking to people? They are, and they do! But to learn how best to help people, they need to have data that tells them what people are usually troubled by. The way they can do that is through giving them tests. However, they don’t just count the answers in their heads in order to acquire data – they mostly use a program called SPSS. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is like a very cool Excel for psychologists; it contains all the necessary formulae for the types of measurements they need.

Not only did someone need to code that entire program, but from time to time, you need to be entering your own code into it to make it do exactly what you want it to. Who knew even social sciences relied on coding?

6. Learn All About the Human Code

Let’s finish this list with another surprising field. Biology is the science that studies living beings – which, as far as we know, do not have any code inside of them… Or do they? We are all, essentially, all made up of code. For example, our DNA consists of four nucleobases – adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine, and uracil. These five little things are what makes you – you. They are at the basis of your genetic code. And that’s just the beginning! We are made up of millions upon millions of microscopic parts. Each of them is different from the other, and biologists keep finding out new ways in which they affect us.

In order to be sure of what they’ve discovered, they need to run tests. They used to use Excel sheets to help them look at data and come up with results. But looking manually through 15,000 data points is not only exhausting, but impossible as well – at least if we’re to eliminate any chance of making a mistake. [2] That’s where coding comes in: it helps biologists organize their data, go through different variations and simulations, and eventually gives them the result they were searching for so they can continue doing their amazing work. [2]

We hope this list (that can certainly be even longer) convinced you that whatever it is you wish to do in life, coding can be a great addition to it. If you’re interested in helping yourself or your child start learning, check out our upcoming projects.

References:

1. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/12/04/margaret-hamilton/

2. https://www.wired.com/2017/03/biologists-teaching-code-survive/