Category: Spring Semester 2025

Natasha Ring, BMC 26′

Solar Education in Philly

Semester: Spring 2025

Faculty Advisor: Don Barber

Field Site: Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA)

Field Supervisor: Liz Robinson

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_Natasha Ring- PIS Final Poster(24 x 36 in)

 

Further Context:

My advisor first mentioned doing a Praxis Independent Study to me as a sophomore, when I declared my major in Environmental Studies. As an Environmental Studies and Education double major planning to pursue a career in Environmental Education, it seemed like a great way for me to explore local organizations working in environmental education and to learn from one. This led to me, almost a year later, reaching out to Tiffany Stahl about doing one. She connected me with Liz Robinson and Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA), where I have done my Praxis Independent Study.

The thing that stood out to me about PSEA was the fact that they worked with schools. I grew up in a school district where learning about climate change, sustainability, and the environment was woven into our curriculum from the very beginning. We took field trips to the local nature center, explored the river across from my high school in labs, and talked about the difficulties with installing solar panels in my town. Placements at local schools in Philadelphia and Norristown through various classes in college showed me that my experiences were the exception, rather than the rule, and made me really interested in making environmental education a part of the public-school curriculum.

This couldn’t have come at a better time, as Pennsylvania’s new science standards, called STEELS standards, go into effect this July and PSEA was involved in creating these solar education kits to supplement the new curriculum. These solar education kits will be free kits for middle school classrooms using repurposed solar panels donated by a farmer. They will come with a handful of lesson plans, aligning with the new STEELS standards, and working on these kits has been my main responsibility this semester.

This project involves faculty and students  from the Drexel Engineering Department in addition to those from PSEA, and it has been great to work collaboratively with everyone. It has really opened up my eyes to all the different considerations required when designing these kits, with questions ranging from how the lessons we’re developing will supplement the new curriculum to the best way to store the solar panels in a classroom. It has also taught me so much about how to actually write a lesson plan, and how to differentiate a good lesson plan from a bad one. Overall, this semester at PSEA has been invaluable for me and I am so appreciative of everyone I’ve gotten to work with this semester.

 

Pragya Silwal, BMC 27′

Evidence for Measuring & Shaping Policy

Semester: Evidence for Measuring & Shaping Policy

Faculty Advisor: Shannon Mudd

Field Site: Econsult Solutions Inc.

Field Supervisor: Cassandra Brown

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_Pragya Silwal_Revised

 

Further Context:

This Spring, I worked as a Research Analyst at Econsult Solutions, a boutique consulting firm in Philadelphia. As an Economics major with minors in Cities and Data Science, the intersection of urban policies and economics is deeply exciting to me.

I designed this course specifically with the intention of learning how data-driven insights are produced and how policy recommendations are formed within the domain of urban economics. During my time at ESI, I’ve been able to achieve this while working on projects for a broad range of clients throughout the U.S. . I’ve been involved in tasks ranging from collecting and visualizing data, creating GIS maps, to reading and consolidating policy pieces and background literatures for the diverse clientele.

My favorite part has been learning to use ArcGIS and working with spatial data. During my first week at work, I was shown a map and asked if I had any ideas around it. Latching on to that moment, I began experimenting with GIS and ended up producing multiple maps for different projects. Additionally, I also have been able to get to the more theoretical part of Economics while conducting economic impact analysis for clients and learning to use corporate software like Implan.

This semester has been a wonderful exposure to the world of economic consulting – what the day-to-day activities look like, and the skillsets needed to prepare for it. On top of that, ESI has been an amazing place to work, thanks to both the scope of their work and the office community. I’m grateful to have had this learning opportunity.

Zoe Beer (HC ‘26), Ferida Mohammed (BMC ‘26), Kripa Lamichhane (BMC ‘26)

Discovery Center: Bird Data

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: DSCI 310: Data in Action

Faculty Advisor: Jennifer Spohrer

Field Site: The Discovery Center

Field Supervisor: Bria Wimberly

Praxis Poster: 

DSCI_PraxisPoster_KripaLamichhane_ZoeBeer_FeridaMohammed

 

Further Context:

This semester, our team collaborated with the Philadelphia Discovery Center to analyze their bird observation data. Situated in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, the Discovery Center emerged from a collaboration between the National Audubon Society and the Philadelphia Outward Bound School. A century-old abandoned reservoir was transformed into a unique wildlife sanctuary and vital stopover for over 100 bird species migrating along the Atlantic Flyway. Since opening in 2018, the Discovery Center provides a space for Philadelphians to discover themselves in nature, practice leadership, and work toward a greener city. Audubon Mid-Atlantic uses the Discovery Center as a facility for research and science-based conservation initiatives and educational programs throughout the Philadelphia region. The Center protects a unique habitat rarely found in a major urban area and provides programs that build community across Philadelphia. The Discovery Center fosters community engagement through bird-watching and environmental stewardship.

Our team’s objective was to support the Audubon Mid-Atlantic’s mission to conserve and restore Pennsylvania’s natural ecosystems, benefiting biological diversity. Early in our project, during our weekly check-in meetings with our field supervisor, Bria Wimberly, we identified two primary but underused data sources on birds that the Center pulled from. First, the Center had been manually archiving data on physical paper tally sheets using a checklist system where visitors could mark their bird observations. This complicated data storage and analysis. Second, the Center uses the eBird.com website which contains valuable digital data observations on birds seen at the East Park Reservoir location. However, the information is not clearly visualized and does not fully present the data in an understandable manner to individuals outside the birding community. Our team worked to address these challenges by developing more efficient data collection strategies and exploring new visualization techniques.

Considering both long term implications and time constraints, our team divided tasks, set realistic milestones, and defined tangible deliverables. Our initial projects started broader in scope and were then streamlined into smaller, targeted projects aligned with each member’s data analytical strengths. Throughout the semester, we maintained a larger purpose as we made our deliverables and met our goals: render bird data at the Discovery Center more accessible, understandable and engaging for the local community and visitors, enhancing their interactive experience with data and nature. 

When it came to data visualization for our bird observation project, we prioritized creating the simplest and clearest analytical representation possible. Initially, we experimented in RStudio and with Plotly Express instead of the more common Matplotlib and Pandas packages, as Plotly offered superior interactive mapping capabilities essential for geographic data. Our first approach displayed observation counts according to bird names and time period, which had notable advantages. Observers could identify how frequently specific birds were spotted without needing taxonomic knowledge. However, this method created problems: the resulting map was cluttered and difficult to interpret without hovering over data points. Additionally, the scale disparity between rare sightings (1 observation) and common birds (up to 3,000 observations) meant data points for uncommon birds virtually disappeared on the map. To address these issues, we pivoted to grouping birds according to The Discovery Center’s standardized taxonomic categories. This significantly improved readability while reducing visual clutter. We preserved detailed information by programming hover functionality that displays specific bird names and observation counts within each category when users interact with data points. Adding distinct color coding for different categories enhanced visual differentiation and intuitive understanding.

We then faced the challenge of making the visualization accessible to users with minimal coding experience. We implemented a dropdown feature that allows users to select any year they wish to visualize, making the interface more user-friendly and eliminating redundant code.

For distribution, we initially considered Google Colab but recognized limitations for non-technical users who would need to understand code execution. Instead, we created a website hosted on GitHub Pages, similar to an interactive visualization encountered in another data science class. This approach makes our visualization accessible without requiring coding knowledge. One current limitation is the complex interactive elements require a larger screen for optimal viewing, making mobile access challenging. However, we’re currently refining the code to make the website responsive, with plans to at least provide a static version for mobile users in the future.

We believe our work lays a foundation for future bird data visualization and analysis at the Discovery Center. While the current graphs rely on static, locally collected data, future iterations could integrate the eBird API to automate data collection and allow for periodic updates. Visualizations can also be refined to focus on specific species, offering more targeted insights that could help the Discovery Center create environments better suited to the needs of those birds. The Google Form we developed provides a starting point for a digital approach to recording and archiving monthly bird sightings, making long-term data management more efficient and opening the door for more dynamic visualizations. We hope the Discovery Center shares these visualizations with the public to gather feedback, which can guide future improvements and encourage greater community engagement with local bird populations.

Through this project, we developed new technical skills and deepened our understanding of data visualization and analysis. We strengthened our RStudio abilities by working with new packages and creating clear, insightful visualizations tailored to complex ecological data. We also learned to clean and filter large datasets using Python, and explored different types of visualizations using libraries like Matplotlib and Plotly Express—gaining insight into which tools and features (like hover effects and interactivity) work best for different types of data. Beyond the technical aspects, we learned the importance of flexibility, iterative testing, and thoughtful design choices when presenting data in a way that highlights key trends and supports meaningful interpretation.

Cynthia Chen (BMC ‘25), Maika Kogawara (BMC ’27), Nayja Shah (BMC ‘27)

Centralizing Data Collection

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: DSCI 310: Data in Action

Faculty Advisor: Jennifer Spohrer

Field Site: Harriton House

Field Supervisor: Laura Carpenter

Praxis Poster: 

DSCI_Harriton House Praxis Poster_Revised

 

Further Context:

For this project, we collaborated with Harriton House, a historic house near the college that housed many influential figures, including Charles Thompson. The Harriton Association maintains it and was seeking access to funding so that it could retain its independent operations. To help Harriton House receive funding, we worked on centralizing their data collection systems, generating headcount forms, and creating guides for staff for easy maintenance.

We primarily used Excel forms, OneDrive, and Excel sheets as our tools for data collection and storage. To gather information from roamers, we created an Excel form with a QR code containing questions about demographics and group sizes. The QR code provides a convenient and accessible way to collect headcounts digitally, requiring only a few taps on a phone.

One major issue Harriton House faced was finding an efficient way to house their volunteer check-in and check-out system. Prior to this project, the Harriton staff had been using paper copies to track volunteer hours, which was not ideal for students in the nearby area to demonstrate their volunteer participation for credits and fund proposals.

We decided to explore Microsoft Excel as the macros function was perfect for our goal of creating an easy, simple, and quick method for volunteers to track their hours. Microsoft Excel is also free on the App Store for volunteers to download and check in and out from their devices. Through trial and error and adapting from codes we found on YouTube channels such as Barb Henderson, we were able to generate a fully automated Excel sheet that can track what time volunteers clocked in and out, and the total hours they worked throughout the week. We implemented volunteer ID numbers as a way for volunteers to clock in and out swiftly. These volunteer ID numbers are unique 4-digit numbers that Harriton staff can assign based on the volunteer’s birthdate. Our hopes for this Excel sheet is for it to relieve the workload off of Harriton staff and have quantitative data on hand for fund proposals. But this spreadsheet only works for regular volunteers. For event-specific volunteers, we created another Excel form for volunteer logins during specific events. Volunteers must record their start and end times on this form.

This project helped cultivate community connections with the Harriton staff, taught the importance of patience, and allowed for the practice of data governance. This praxis, Data in Action, focuses on a variety of topics, one of them being data governance. How do we ensure that the data is being stored safely, not being taken advantage of, and can be reproduced? To implement data governance, we worked to ensure that users consented to their data being used, the information was reproducible, and not identifiable. We informed the people filling out our headcounting survey about why we were asking for this information and asked for their permission to use their information for head counting. Then, in order to ensure reproducibility, we created guidelines, specifically for the volunteer check-in and check-out information. We created instructions on how to clean the dataset and conduct analyses for staff, as well as instructions for the volunteers who were going to fill out the form. The third aspect was fulfilled by creating four-digit ID numbers to identify data rather than using the personal information of people who filled out the forms, preventing re-identifiability.

This project aimed to help digitize the Harriton House’s data and to make it easier for them to fulfill data aggregation to receive funding. We are excited to see the staff use our materials and are hopeful that the Harriton Association will, in due course, receive funding for them to continue operating independently.

Ruth Tilahun (BMC 26′), Kelli Eng (BMC 26′), Jenny Le (BMC 26′), Gioanna Zhao (BMC 26′), David Dai (HC 26′)

Automating Data Collection and Analysis for Solar Energy Initiatives

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: DSCI 310: Data in Action

Faculty Advisor: Jennifer Spohrer

Field Site: Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA)

Field Supervisor: Liz Robinson, Rob Celentano

Praxis Poster: 

DSCI_Jenny_Le_RevisedPraxisPoster

 

Further Context:

During our time in the Data in Action course, we gained the opportunity to explore a crucial question in terms of data and social impact: What does it take to use data responsibly in service of social good? Over the semester, we explored the legal, ethical, and historical dimensions of data use, while partnering directly with local non-profits to co-create a data project that reflected their values, needs, and mission. We learned to critically examine how data is produced and interpreted, and how thoughtful design and communication can make data more useful. Through hands-on work, we gained insight into both the power and the responsibility that comes with using data in the public sphere.

Our team partnered with the Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA), a non-profit that promotes solar energy adoption across Pennsylvania through advocacy, education, and community engagement. PSEA’s main challenge was related to data collection and visualization. Solar installation data was scattered across different platforms, inconsistently formatted, and difficult to update. This limited their ability to create timely, effective visual materials to inform the public and support clean energy initiatives. The goal with our project was to streamline the data collection and visualization process that was often compiled by one person. We developed a sustainable, code-based process to gather, clean, and visualize solar data from public sources like AEPS, SEIA, and PJM. Using Python, we created scripts that automated data extraction and analysis, providing a final deliverable of user-friendly, updatable plots delivered in a Jupyter Notebook format. Each team member contributed to the project in a unique way. One member focused on scraping and organizing the data, experimenting with different Python libraries to handle inconsistent formats and shifting web structures. Another led the visualization efforts, creating clear and interpretable charts like histograms, bar graphs, and bubble plots to illustrate trends in solar adoption. Other teammates documented the full workflow and assembled the project deliverables, ensuring our work would be easy for PSEA to maintain long-term. Throughout the semester, we met biweekly with PSEA staff to present our progress and adapt our approach based on their needs. By the end, we had a working system that helped streamline their outreach efforts and gave us a real sense of what it means to do data work that matters.

One experience that stood out during this project was the pivot in our final project deliverable format. In the beginning, our team members aimed to create a product that would require no work on the back-end from PSEA. This manifested in the use of an API that would run visualizations based on our Python scripts and deploy them to a separate website. In discussing with our supervisors, we decided that this format would ultimately not serve PSEA’s goals, so we pivoted to Jupyter Notebook. Initially, this felt like a setback because the scripts then required some efforts from PSEA to download external data sources. However, in troubleshooting this issue, we wrote documentation for the data import process. Our final deliverable decreases the overall workload for PSEA, if not being 100% hands-off, and this experience gave us deeper insight into how crucial it is to openly communicate with partners about technical limitations and updates.

This course and partnership with PSEA allows us to gain technical skills as well as tools for data analysis, collaboration, and project design. We learned how data can shine a light on possibilities for community advocacy, and we’ll take with us the ability to communicate our work clearly while handling data responsibly.

Sarah Stephens (BMC ’25) Maya Carlino (BMC ‘26), Karen Angel Aguirre (BMC ‘26) Elise Cameron (BMC ‘27)

Crating Community through Cooking

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: SPAN 247: Gastropoetica Latinoamericana

Faculty Advisor: Juan Suárez Ontaneda

Field Site: Puentes de Salud, ACLAMO

Praxis Poster: 

SPAN_Group 1 Poster- Elise, Maya, Karen, Sarah

 

Further Context:

Throughout the semester, our class has learned about the history and significance of food in Latinx communities. From corn, which is an indigenous crop central to Mesoamerican civilizations, to cacao, originally from southern Asia and spread through colonization. We’ve seen how food tells stories of migration, resistance, tradition, and memory. These crops are ingredients in many of today’s Latinx dishes. Just something as simple and essential like the corn tortilla.

As part of our learning, we visited Puentes de Salud, an organization that supports the Latinx immigrant community in Philadelphia. Our class through Praxis and this course created interactive projects to teach teenagers about staple crops like corn, yuca, plantains, quinoa, cacao, potatoes, beans, pineapple, coconut, and aji (chili pepper). We as a class designed fun group activities like drawing, games, and tasty snacks to introduce these ingredients and their cultural roots in a meaningful way.

After our first visit, during a group reflection with Puentes de Salud, we realized the kids were craving more than just activities; they wanted food so the next time, we delivered. Our class was divided into groups, where we each prepared a dish that highlighted one or more of the crops we studied. The food that we made included pico de gallo, guacamole, mangonadas, chocoflan, and tostadas de tinga. Our group picked tostadas de tinga which was a new and fun experience for us since it was our first time cooking together.

We followed a special recipe passed down from Karen’s mom who makes tostadas de tinga at least once every week. It’s a family favorite. We cooked everything in the ECC kitchen beforehand and brought it to Puentes de Salud, along with toppings that include lettuce, sour cream beans and queso cotija. One thing we learned while making it, is that if your tomato sauce comes out too acidic, a little sugar helps balance it out. Everyone was allowed to build their own tostadas. It was a creative and collaborative way to connect over food, allowing each child to make the meal their own. While we were reflecting at the end of this trip, one of the volunteers Lucia shared a memory that was really meaningful. She said that when she first reunited with her mother in the U.S., she saw a small window with the kitchen light on. Inside, her mother stood at the stove with the stove on and a pan of tinga chicken. She hadn’t had tinga since then. The tostadas de tinga brought that memory rushing back to her.

What started as a class praxis project became something deeper. It became a shared experience rooted in tradition, storytelling, and community. Recipes are more than instructions, they’re bridges between generations. They stay with us for life. Cooking and eating together at Puentes de Salud wasn’t just fun, it was healing as well. It was a reminder that food keeps us grounded in our own cultures and how food also opens doors to understanding others. Through tostadas de tinga, we honored Karen’s family recipe, celebrated the kids’ curiosity, and brought someone back to a memory of home. And that? That’s the real power of food.

Hannah Cosgrove (BMC 25′), Rachel Dopico (BMC 26′), Ema Eig (BMC 25′), Isabel (Izzie) Hoffman (BMC 27′)

Community Building through Culinary Connection

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: SPAN 247: Gastropoetica Latinoamericana

Faculty Advisor: Juan Suárez Ontaneda

Field Site: Puentes de Salud

Praxis Poster: 

SPAN_Group 2

 

Further Context:

As a part of our Praxis course, “Gastropoetics of Latin American Culture”, we had the opportunity to work with various partner organizations in Philadelphia to discuss how food traditions and foodways have shaped culture and discourse in Latin America. In class, we engaged with theory, manuscripts, short stories, cookbooks, and movies across a range of disciplines to begin to understand the complex ways that food has been recorded, categorized, and understood over time and space. Comparing indigenous narratives, colonial interactions, and shifting constructions of gender, we partook in field trips and community collaborations as an opportunity to put these concepts into practice.

For one of our partner collaborations, we visited Puentes de Salud, an organization in Philadelphia that offers medical, dental, and educational services to the local Latine and immigrant community. Part of this programming includes a group called Lanzando Líderes (Launching Leaders) that focuses on providing high-school aged kids with mentoring and workshops that encourage leadership skills, academic support, and confidence. Topics generally discussed by the group include post-highschool planning, social-emotional skills, health, wellness, and social justice. Volunteers from local partners, like Bryn Mawr College, often come in to help lead sessions related to their area of expertise.

Our journey with Puentes de Salud consisted of three visits. The first visit was an informational session and the others involved workshops related to food pathways. In the first of these sessions, we gave presentations and led students through activities on different foods, such as potatoes, pineapples, cacao, beans, etc, essential to Latin American identity. Incorporating feedback from this session, we came prepared for our last visit with enough recipes to create a community meal. As we cooked, we led the ‘Launching Leaders’ group in discussions on the history of food origins in Latin America related to the specific recipes and dishes. In small groups we shared our personal connections to the created dish while cooking the meal together. At the end of each session, we were able to share our takeaways with our group while enjoying our delicious homemade meal!

Alessia Seijas Fuenmayor (BMC ‘28), Lourdes Sankar (BMC ‘27), Marielle Soluri (HC ’28), Lucía Román Harter (BMC ‘26)

Food and Community

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: SPAN 247: Gastropoetica Latinoamericana

Faculty Advisor: Juan Suarez Ontaneda

Field Site: Puentes de Salud, ACLAMO

Praxis Poster: 

SPAN_Praxis Poster Presentation group 4 Revised

 

Further Context:

For our course this semester, we partnered with Puentes de Salud, a non-profit organization that provides health care and afterschool services for the Latinx community of South Philadelphia. We also worked with ACLAMO, another non-profit organization that offers bilingual resources to address the gaps in accessibility for Latinx youth. Over the semester we participated in two meetings with the students at Puentes and one with the members of ACLAMO.

During our first meeting with Puentes, we created activities and infographics for the students with the various products we had discussed during class. Items like potato, pineapple, beans, corn and coconut were discussed in a cultural, social and historical lens. We discussed how important these items were to our day-to-day life, their role within our Latinx heritage, as well as the way each crop made its way to the Americas. Each student received a zine that consisted of each ingredient and its foodway to the United States. Afterwards, we bonded with the students and decided on our next activity.

Our second meeting consisted of creating accessible recipes that connected us to our culture that the students could recreate at home. As half of our group was from Texas, we decided to make mangonadas, a popular Mexican drink made from mango chunks, mango extract, lime juice, ice, tajin and chamoy. We guided the students through the process and explained why this recipe was significant to us. Many of the students and organizers tried this drink for the first time which was really special for our group to create a sense of community surrounding a common food from our own cultures. Through this process we were able to connect with the students as we shared our favorite dishes and experiences in the kitchen.

Lastly, we met with ACLAMO, their students joined us on campus for a couple activities, a campus tour and dinner! The goal of this meeting was to allow the students to see themselves represented in higher education and show them a realistic view of college. We shared experiences about our dining hall and their cafeteria experiences. And discussed how we would like to see Latin American culture represented in these spaces. We built community with these students by connecting over common foods we loved from our own homes and hoping that dining halls and cafeterias would make more efforts to include all cultures.

It was a very meaningful experience to be able to connect with both the Latin American history we discussed during the class, and the diverse Hispanic population of the city of Philadelphia.

Claire Ford, BMC ’25

Exploring Experiential Learning as Transformation

Semester: Spring 2025

Faculty Advisor: Alison Cook-Sather

Field Site: Tri-Co Philly Program

Field Supervisor: Calista Cleary

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_FINAL Ford, Claire - PIS Final Poster (24 x 36 in) (1)

 

Further Context:

Going into my second semester of senior year, I was excited to take up the opportunity to self-design a praxis independent study in which I could focus my learning on non-traditional educational contexts. I was inspired by a course I took last semester, Making Space for Learning in Higher Education, with Dr. Kelly Zuckerman, and the work we did to understand and practice education as a means for change. I was stuck on this idea of change, and the process of transformation that occurs throughout education. With this in mind, I went back to a place of transformation for myself, and reflected back on my time as a program student within the Tri-Co Philly Program in the Fall semester of 2022.

The Tri-Co Philly Program is an opportunity for students from Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges to participate in classes taken at the Friends Center in the heart of Philadelphia. Students take two courses within the program that center around the city of Philadelphia and participate in weekly field activities to become more familiar with the city. I truly enjoyed my experience within the program, and appreciated the different, more experience-based learning my classes took part in. This led me to a self-designed internship with the Tri-Co Philly Program that was my praxis independent study, “Exploring Experiential Education as Transformation.”

Due to the nature of my internship, I was able to take up a wide range of learning and assignments to fit exactly what I wanted to study. When separating these interests into two main categories, I, as highlighted in my poster above, worked to organize data reflecting the impact of the Philadelphia Engagement Grant for all three colleges, as well as explore the wide range of experiential learning that occurs within the Bi-Co.

The first part of my internship involved gathering data about the Philadelphia Engagement Grants, which are grants allocated by the Tri-Co Philly Program that Tri-Co faculty can apply to once a semester to “enrich the curricular content of an on-campus class by facilitating student experiences in the city” (Tri-Co Philly Program). The grants sponsor student excursions to the city such as interacting with a Philadelphia-based organization, taking a walking tour hosted by an alum, and going to see a play that speaks to themes within the class. The grants covered a wide range of student excursions but shared similar excitement and eagerness to connect students with the city of Philadelphia. My role involved the creation of both a spreadsheet to store all the information regarding the Philadelphia Engagement Grants, and various infographics to represent not only the numbers, but the more humane impact these grants have on both students and faculty alike. Thank you to Calista Cleary for the guidance, and for allowing me the opportunity to explore this source of knowledge through the creation of this internship.

In addition to this, with the guidance of Alison Cook-Sather, I explored the wide range of experiential learning both in and outside of the Bi-Co. My research took me to interview three professors within the institutions. I learned their different and unique conceptualizations of experiential learning, as well as their perception of student engagement and learning in experiential education. Thank you to Professor Borowiak, Professor Montes, and Professor Lillehaugen for taking the time to speak with me this semester. I utilized this research, along with numerous conversations, reflections, readings, and other sources to map out a continuum of experiential learning. My questions for consideration are those I actively engaged with throughout this process, what I want you as a reader to use as guidance when imagining education, as well as what I am asking myself as I move towards post-graduation. Thank you to Alison Cook-Sather for advising, challenging, and inspiring me throughout this process!

Maia Roark, HC 25′

Curating the Past: Preserving the Future

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork

Faculty Advisor: Monique Scott and Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site:  Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Field Supervisor: Brianna Quade

Praxis Poster:

HART_Maia Praxis Poster (24 x 36 in)_Revised

 

Further Context:

This semester, I interned at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP). I was lucky enough to work in the Learning and Engagement Department under Brianna Quade, the Community Engagement Coordinator.

For a little introduction, HSP opened in 1824 as a way to preserve valuable documents of the American Revolution. Today, HSP’s collection includes over 21 million items, most of which are books, manuscripts, photographs, and newspapers. The archive rests in the heart of Center City, several blocks away from City Hall. One of my favorite things about HSP is that all of the objects are in one building. If you sit down in the Hogwarts-esque reading room and request something — say, an 18th-century ornithology book, a 10-foot SEPTA map, or a David Kennedy watercolor — it will be brought to you. There are so many items that even HSP’s staff regularly find materials they never knew we had. (One of the most recent ones was the diaries and briefcase of a traveling salesman who traveled with his pet raccoon, Dimples).

My work mainly involved working on an upcoming exhibit entitled Voices of the Community: Local Black Preservation. I spent the beginning months of the internship sifting through different collections, trying to find materials that resonated with me. I finally settled on the Nellie Rathbone Bright collection. Over the next few weeks, I researched Ms. Bright and put together a wall case that highlighted significant moments in her life. Ms. Bright worked as the principal for three different Philadelphia schools in the mid-20th century. She constantly strove to make her community a better place, planting gardens, building playgrounds, and generally improving the areas around her schools. In a particularly touching photograph, Ms. Bright poses with several teachers and schoolchildren next to a TV: the first of its kind at her school.

Overall, one of the most memorable experiences of this internship was the feeling of tapping into the great Philadelphia community. As a Haverford student, I sometimes forget how isolated the campus is. My internship at HSP not only made me feel like I was in the know, but also made me feel like I was doing something about it. When Macy’s announced that they were closing the historic Wanamaker Building, America’s first department store, HSP invited the public to come view its Wanamaker Collection which included drawings, photographs, and letters about the building. I got to help set up documents for a WHYY segment on Wanamaker.

Finally, I am so grateful for my experience at HSP. This is my second time interning in its Learning & Engagement Department, and I have learned so much about working in the museum field. Above all, I have learned the importance of a positive work environment. Thank you to Brianna, Justina, Selena, and Katie for such a great spring semester.