Feature Friday: Maija Overturf ’22

The Honors College’s Feature Friday series highlights an Honors student every Friday and shares a little bit about their experiences in Honors and at the University of Maine.

This week, our feature is on Maija Overturf. Maija is a third-year elementary education major with a minor in Spanish. She is from Corinth, Maine.

Maija expressed an appreciation of UMaine and its strong community: “I’ve met so many supportive peers and faculty members that make me feel like I’m a part of something much bigger than myself.

With the isolation of the pandemic situation, it’s been great to have a community to find support with and stay involved in.”

Her favorite part of the Honors College is the guest lecturers.

Maija is currently working on her Honors thesis: “I’m working with Franziska Peterson on a project that examines how elementary education majors here at UMaine interpret and display data.

We believe that they will show similar trends that previous studies have found in 9th graders: difficulty in graph choice, developing statistical questions, and displaying evidence to support claims about data relationships.

This will be a useful project to determine the necessity of intervention lessons on data for preservice teachers.”