Entrepreneurship

Bronze

In the Spring 2018 semester, I completed a course within the Entrepreneurship minor. Social Bases of Public and Community Health (HAPP/SOCY 354) includes an entrepreneurial group project that is 40% of the overall grade. The goal was to create an appealing public health tabling display to engage children between the ages of two and ten at Port Discovery Children's Museum's "Healthy First Saturdays" program on April 7th, 2018.

My team worked on our project for weeks throughout the semester before presenting at the museum. We chose the topic of oral health to reinforce the concepts of brushing and flossing. To get children's attention we displayed cartoon pictures of germs on our poster board and had a large set of plastic teeth and a huge toothbrush, the game "Crocodile dentist," and a song about tooth brushing by the popular children's show character Daniel the Tiger. We handed out pamphlets to parents about how preventative oral health actions can positively impact a child's overall health and gave a sticker and toothbrush to each child who practiced brushing using the large set of teeth and toothbrush. We even dressed up like tooth fairies!

My Grand Challenge of Improving Access to Clean Water is related to oral health because tooth-brushing is often not seen as a priority in areas of the world where clean water is precious.

Entrepreneurial Thinking and Communication Skills

This project intertwined with the public health curriculum is a very creative way to help students practice appealing to their target audience, which is a critical skill for entrepreneurs. Because a child's attention span isn't very long, we had to find content-driven ways to engage them and get our message across quickly. Dressing up like tooth fairies proved to be an effective way to keep a child's attention longer than if a stranger tried to tell them about dental hygiene.

Networking and Vision

While we could have tried to cover a lot of material regarding oral health, we decided to keep our program focused so the children would be more likely to remember what we talked about. As mentioned above, we handed out toothbrushes, floss, and toothpaste that were donated by some local dentists' offices and the Baltimore City Health Department. We had to contact and build a relationship with these organizations to get their support and donations for the project.

Teamwork and Project Development

The other six students and I on the team each contributed unique qualities that made the project outcomes better. While some of us were very crafty and made the presentation of our board look amazing, others were stronger at reaching out to passing families at the table. As far as tools for assessment, the staff at Port Discovery graded our projects based on the presentation's appeal and quality. Now I think we would all have more confidence to do community health outreach projects in the future.

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