Community Outreach
The Outreach Learning Fellow program (OLF) is a year-long program that places Tufts undergraduate and graduate students in local classrooms to provide engineering experiences to K-8 students from diverse backgrounds who might otherwise lack access to hands-on engineering. Working within the same classroom all year, fellows collaborate with teachers to tailor activities to the classroom and individual student goals, and to better connect with students’ experiences, cultures, and communities. The Tufts students participate in weekly seminars that address progressive engineering education teaching, community relationship building, and how to support the social-emotional learning of young students with special attention to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). A range of materials are used for activities, including LEGO robotics. Tufts provides all materials so that students can use technologies that would otherwise be cost prohibitive for their schools to purchase.