Service Learning Project
I was a part of the Down Syndrome Indiana Buddy Walk for my service learning project in my freshman seminar class.
A service learning project is an activity where students take what they've learned in the classroom and apply it to a real community need. This helps students contribute to community development as well as learn and develop some civic skills. For my service learning project I helped run the food and drink tent during the Down Syndrome Indiana Buddy Walk. DSI's Buddy Walk is their largest fundraising and awareness event and is open to anyone with Down Syndrome, their family and friends, as well as anyone in the community who would like to come support them.​
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Through this service learning project I learned how rewarding it is to be able to do something like this. To be a part of something bigger than myself and campus was really nice and I really enjoyed getting to meet all the different people there supporting anyone with Down Syndrome. It was a very fun day just getting to see all the smiling faces and families having fun together and I'm very grateful I got to witness it and help with it.
Global Nutrition Virtual Exchange
Indiana University - Indianapolis & Newcastle University
The global virtual exchange I was a part of was for KINE-N 220, an online nutrition class. Our global exchange was with Newcastle University in England. For this exchange we were assigned into groups of 4 with 2 IUI students and 2 Newcastle University students per group and met periodically on zoom. The goal of our global virtual exchange was to compare and contrast the US's nutrition and dietary recommendations to that of the UK as well as to get to know the Newcastle students in our group.
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Throughout this global virtual exchange not only did I get to learn about the UK's nutrition and dietary recommendations, I also got to know a few of the Newcastle students that I wouldn't have had the chance to know otherwise. I think that global virtual exchange in a great thing because of that. It lets us look into the ideals and thought processes of other countries which is really neat in my opinion.
KINE-P 246
Throughout this class I did 4 presentations. For the first one a partner and I got to teach the class about the barbell strict press by explaining and demonstrating it, as well as helping the class figure out the correct form and technique. For the next presentation that same partner and I taught and led the class through a resistance training workout for a rehab patient focusing on the shoulders, knees, and hips which concluded the first half of the semester focused on resistance training. The second half was focused more on group fitness. The first presentation I did for this half was with a different partner and we led the class through a dynamic warm-up consisting of 9 different exercises. The last presentation was with the same partner as before and was a 45 minute presentation where we taught and led the class through a muscle conditioning workout.
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Throughout this semester I feel like this class has helped me not only become more confident in myself but also more comfortable being up in front of the class. In the beginning of this class I absolutely hated the idea of doing any kind of presentation. Now at the end of this semester, looking back on the presentations, I can tell that throughout this course I have gained so much confidence in myself to know what I'm talking about and feel so much more comfortable teaching and leading the class through these different exercises and workouts.
KINE-P 403
403 is a Kinesiology course primarily focused on cardio exercise. This course explored the different types/avenues as well as the numerous benefits of cardio exercise. Throughout this course we designed and executed our own 5k plans and cardio exercise video. Both of these were very beneficial learning experiences, however the cardio exercise video was more beneficial for me specifically so it's the one I'll primarily talk about. For this video, which I have linked below, we were in groups of at least 3 and had to pick our own overall topic, type of cardio exercise, and decide how to execute it. My group chose to do a cheer-style chair dance and fitness exercise video that focuses on children in wheelchairs. All of our background music was very upbeat and it was a great experience trying to film this video.
This experience helped me feel more comfortable in branching out and exploring different avenues of specifically cardio exercise and being able to teach/lead others through a cardio exercise workout.