Where Design Inspires Learning: NIST Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program

Credit: E. Koncki/NIST

Returning to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) this summer was an exciting opportunity to continue the work I started during Professional Research and Experience Program (PREP) internship with the Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) Metric Program. Through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program, I researched and designed educational resources that help elementary students connect measurement concepts to everyday life. This experience showed me how research, creativity, and collaboration can come together to create meaningful learning experiences.

One of the biggest lessons I learned is that effective educational design begins with understanding the audience. Before developing resources, I reviewed existing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education materials, researched national education standards, and explored how measurement concepts are introduced in elementary classrooms. Through this research, I found that early metric education often focuses on measurements such as length, while temperature receives much less attention. Since students experience temperature every day, I wanted to create resources that introduce Celsius measurements to young learners through familiar, real-world situations rather than memorization.

This idea became Metric Measurement Inspector, the primary educational activity I developed during my internship. In this activity, students become food safety inspectors and use Celsius temperature benchmarks (-18 °C, 4 °C, and 20 °C) to determine whether different foods are stored safely in different storage locations (such as a freezer, refrigerator, and pantry). Instead of simply memorizing temperatures, students use measurement skills to analyze scenarios and make decisions, similar to a field inspector. I wanted the activity to go beyond a traditional worksheet by combining STEM with creativity and comprehension skills. Students read an inspection guide, analyze food storage situations, and explain their decisions. They can also color and customize food cards or create their own, allowing them to engage with an interdisciplinary activity through both science and art. After completing the activity, students earn a Metric Measurement Inspector badge, introducing them to the idea that measurement skills are used in real careers that help keep people safe. Although Metric Measurement Inspector is still under development and is not yet published, feedback from external educators and reviewers has helped improve the activity and prepare it for future use.

Beyond my main project, I continued developing the Celsius Temperature Video from my previous PREP internship, supported outreach events such as the Montgomery County Public Schools Science Leadership Week and the NIST Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers, prepared SI Teacher Kits for U.S. educators, redesigned the Education Resources on the Metric System (SI) webpage, created visually engaging thumbnails for the Metric Kitchen recipe video series, and added educational resources to the NIST Educational STEM Resource Registry (NEST-R). The Celsius Temperature Video is still in development and has not yet been published. Together, these projects and other companion resources will contribute to a future NIST Special Publication (SP) focused on temperature education, providing teachers and students with multiple ways to explore measurement concepts.

Looking back, this internship gave me a new perspective on the connection between design and education. I learned that designers have the ability to influence how people understand, interact with, and connect with information. My experience at NIST strengthened my interest in using design to support learning and communication, especially in STEM fields. Moving forward, I hope to continue developing solutions that make complex ideas more accessible and create experiences that help people learn with curiosity and confidence.