2024 Pushed the Boundaries of Interdisciplinary Learning
The PepsiCo EdTech program at Duke University brings cutting-edge technology and immersive learning experiences to Durham Public School students. Under the leadership of David Stein, Senior Education Partnership Coordinator at Duke Community Affairs, the program continually evolves to meet the needs of young innovators. In 2024, students stretched themselves and the staff with two newly-designed weeklong immersion programs. The 2025 summer program is designed to bring new innovations into the classroom.
Students unleashed creativity with AI
The PepsiCo EdTech immersive learning experiences, hosted on the Duke campus during the summer, have a lasting impact on the students involved.
The 2024 AI Immersion Week, held in collaboration with Durham Public Schools (DPS) Career and Technical Education (CTE), offered students the chance to dive deep into artificial intelligence technologies. Participating middle schoolers gained hands on experience with the latest tools to bring their ideas to life. They used AI tools like Suno AI to create music, and Canva to create AI-generated art for their original children’s books.
When Steve Toback, Media Architect and Senior Producer for Academic Media Production with the Duke Office of Information Technology, helped the class create their own songs, they showed off their creativity, producing a gospel song about tomatoes they thorough enjoyed and played for their parents at the Friday showcase.
ESL learners brought their stories to life
The PepsiCo EdTech team uses advanced technology to foster a love for learning in unexpected ways. A second immersion week program was designed to helping ESL learners develop a passion for storytelling. The course used two approaches to helping the students become more fluid and excited with their reading.
The first involved engaging in some unique experiences and then writing about them. To do this, students visited Duke’s cutting-edge labs including the microscope lab, VR studio, and surgical training centers. Then, they were encouraged to write about they experienced.
“The other focus was on helping write their own stories,” said Stein. “Since almost none of them can touch type, we showed them how to use voice typing to get their thoughts down. As with the AI Immersion week participants, the students then used Canva’s AI program to illustrate their books. We published the results as eBooks using the Heyzine Program.”
To run the ESL Immersion week, Stein was joined by Rita Winsor, who recently retired from Duke HR, and Cara Kozma, a Duke staff volunteer. They were assisted by two former John Hope Franklin Young Scholars and a veteran from the AI Immersion Program earlier in the summer.
Stein confided the team had an additional tech assist: “ I don’t know what I would have done without Google Translate for the ESL Immersion Week. I send out notes to immersion program families at the end of every day, but this time I had to translate them into Spanish, Vietnamese, and Arabic.”
Sneak peek into Summer 2025 and beyond
The next iteration of this EdTech outreach programming is a new computer science immersion program modeled on BOOST and the John Hope Franklin Young Scholars. In partnership with Duke OIT and the Computer Science Department, this course will bring drones, AR, and robotics into the hands of rising 6th grade girls and their allies. In addition to the summer immersion weeks, students will be able to continue their CS journeys in monthly Saturday workshops.
Enduring support for young scholars and their teachers
The PepsiCo Ed Tech program, a partnership between Duke University Libraries and the Office of Duke Community Affairs, is funded by a PepsiCo endowment. Its mission is to keep local classroom teachers updated on instructional technology innovations, provide curriculum-related support, and enhance the information literacy of Durham Public Schools students, creating a bridge between cutting-edge educational tools and the local community. In depth training opportunities run throughout the year and interested teachers can contact David Stein at dstein@duke.edu.
The PepsiCo Ed Tech program is part of a larger effort by Duke University and Duke Health to work with Durham Public Schools and other educational institutions across the region to further quality education and outcomes for pre-K through pre-college students. Learn more about the Strategic Community Impact focus on Education on the Duke Community Affairs website.