Harvard mentors learn on the job
Some unknown criminal had eaten all of Grace Eysenbach’s cupcakes. She and her partner were on the case. They examined and classified fingerprints on the cupcake box and used chromatography to determine which colored marker was used to write a note left at the scene. Their scientific know-how paid off, and the frosting-fingered perpetrator was quickly apprehended. The duo’s detective work was a lesson Eysenbach designed to teach a fifth-grader about colors, solutions, molecules, and scientific research methods. All in a session’s work for Eysenbach ’20, an electrical engineering concentrator at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who mentors three students at the Harvard Ed Portal in Allston. “It’s the happiest three hours of my week — getting to walk across the river and spend time in the mind of a kid, thinking about how education can be exciting,” she said. “Oftentimes, as College students, it is easy...