Communications and HIV

Projects

Partners Annabelle and Sarah spent their summer as science communications interns and worked on multiple projects. Their main project was the HIV Modeling Curriculum. The two worked together to develop an engaging worksheet and accompanying model to teach students about a phenomenon in HIV and the importance of systems thinking. Their process included research, meetings with mentors, and student trial runs and feedback to refine and revise the curriculum to its final form. The curriculum will be soon be incorporated into the in-development Computational Modeling module as a part of the System Education Experiences (SEE) program's existing, open-access modules.

You can view the finished PDFs here- the student copy and the teacher guide.

To accompany this worksheet and model, the pair also filmed and created a video hook featuring four ISB employees and scientists currently researching HIV under the Innovator Award. The video depicted the four as heroes teaming up to conquer HIV with the power of systems thinking.  This video includes interview footage edited by Annabelle and art graphics drawn by Sarah.

You can view their video here!

The partners worked on a timeline for SEE's website to showcase the program's events and accomplishments. They researched and chose a foundational plugin that they began to populate with events, getting it ready to been handed off to the SEE program for continued updates. Check out their timeline!

They also had the opportunity to take over both the official SEE Instagram and the official ISB Instagram, where they shared pictures and wrote posts on behalf of the Institute, gaining many likes and followers in the progress.

Annabelle took on the role as photographer for all the interns, diligently snapping beautiful photos of interns at work and at play.

Sarah took on the role of an in-house illustrator, working with a variety of projects and drawing digital art diagrams for different curriculums in development.

 

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Claudia Ludwig, Martin Shelton, Adrian Lopez Garcia de Lomana, and Chris Lausted for their invaluable curriculum feedback and teaching us about modeling, HIV, and scientific research.

To the countless scientists and employees of ISB that allowed us to interview them and hear about their experiences.

To Allison Kudla and Joe Myxter, for taking the time to share their experiences, helping us with the cameras and film equipment, and giving two high school interns the password to ISB’s Instagram account.

To Valeria and Ava, for testing our curriculum.

To Kyle Kinzler for letting Sarah steal his iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

To all the interns for being the best interns and colleagues anyone could hope for.

To Maryann Watkins, for letting us job shadow your lab activities.

And especially to Jessica Day for assisting, teaching, and believing in us, and for being an amazing mentor and genuinely, a Wonder WoManager.