Karina Martínez partnered with global collaborators to create Corona-Ninjas, a coronavirus educational program for primary-school aged kids.
What was the focus of your internship?
Corona-Ninjas is a project created by two professors from the Universidad de La Rioja, located in Logroño, La Rioja, Spain. Back in March, 2020, COVID-19 started affecting our world and Spain was one of the first countries affected by it. The city went into lockdown and schools were forced to move their in-person learning to an online education. Primary school students were affected by the situation just like everyone else, but we understand that for children this can be a harder situation to understand. These professors created Corona-Ninjas to mainly focus on children's education and health status. I applied to participate in the program because it was a great opportunity to get myself involved in making a positive difference in the global pandemic.
I partnered with local University of Arizona students and La Rioja University from Spain. With this internship I was able to share the American and Latin culture while also learning from Spain cultural aspects, the educational system and its people. This internship being fully remote and collaborative with international students helped me develop communication skills through new platforms (social media, web conferences). We worked together to first brainstorm ideas on how we can help our children during the pandemic, then we created educational activities to be posted on the Corona-Ninjas website. All activities can be found here. Videos, games, worksheets, assignments and more can be found in English and in Spanish.
How was the internship related to your Applied Humanities degree?
I don’t think I could have found a better internship where skills I gained from my major and my minor could have been combined so perfectly. As a Humanities student with an emphasis in Public Health, I saw this internship as a great opportunity to gain transferable skills in a health related topic. Also, my minor is in Spanish, so I felt that I would be combining both of my studies into one internship program. I knew this opportunity would benefit me in developing what I have been learning from the past semester of studies. I needed both of my study areas to complete this internship, as I had to develop a fun and educational activity for children ages 6-12, but also have it done in a Bilingual aspect, English and Spanish.