Mentors

What do mentors do?

A mentor’s job is not a heavy lift. You are expected to follow a class and its Magenta House project and offer guidance as needed at four intervals, including: three 45-minute virtual (zoom) “office hour” periods during which students may “drop by” and ask you questions or otherwise seek your advice, and one 45-minute period devoted to a practice session for presenting their project at the Expo. 

All dates/times will be coordinated with you prior to the start of the program. An administrator will be in charge of making sure teachers/students log on at the correct times using your zoom link. 

Our curricular resources support all aspects of the Magenta House program and project development. Please review our supporting resources as listed below prior to your mentoring sessions.

Office Hours are times when your “door” should be open, but primarily serve as a time for students to ask you questions. You are not expected to teach but, rather, just to be responsive to classroom needs. Your four mentor sessions take place over February and March and correspond to the following aspects of the program:

• Mentor Office Hours #1 (45 min.): Self-introductions and thematic focus on project management. As this will be your first time meeting the class, you will want to introduce yourself, tell the students about your background, and highlight why you care about sustainability. Students should also tell you about themselves. This should take 5-10 minutes. 

  At this time, students will have just begun the R&D process. Magenta House curricular resources will be focused on project management, and there may be basic questions about that. 

  Remember that Magenta House projects are all about creating actual water and power savings in the real world. Repeating this and helping to guide students to focus on a practical project with water- and power-saving deliverables are important.

  Supporting resources: Project Management

• Mentor Office Hours #2 (45 min.): Check-in on progress with a thematic focus on impact assessment. Students will likely have questions about their projects and need help with sticking points, troubleshooting, etc. Our curricular resources will focus on impact assessment – that is, making sure that projects deliver in terms of gallons of water and kilowatts of power saved – and so you will want to strike this same theme, with assessments of both immediate and projected impact. Your advice is important to help guide students into creating a project that delivers real impact that can be measured.

  Supporting resources: Impact Assessment

• Mentor Office Hours #3 (45 min.): Progress check-in with a thematic focus on presentation design. At this point, projects are nearing completion and focus will be on making a strong presentation at the Expo. It will be very important that students are able to explain clearly what they have done and that they are delivering the necessary requirements. We offer supporting materials (such as a pitch deck template) that you may want to direct them to .

  Supporting resources: Presentation Design

• Mentor Session for Presentation Practice (45 min.). This is your last check-in period. Over this, you are expected to watch the students perform their presentation live and give them feedback that they can use when they do final recordings for the Expo.

  Supporting resources: Expo page of Teacher’s deck

As issues arise during the program, Mentors are asked to communicate directly with the Magenta House team.

Fingerprints

Magenta House is an official program of LAUSD and as such, each mentor must be fingerprinted and background checked before working with students. The process is quick and efficient; we will cover related expenses. Email betsy@pandopopulus.com for more information.

Expo and the Pando Awards

The Expo event occurs virtually on a Saturday either at the end of March or early-April. We encourage you to attend and support your team but it is not required. The Pando Sustainability Awards occur on April 14 at an all-County event held at Caltech. Your attendance is highly encouraged.