CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
5-6 Afternoon
An Exploration of STEAM Life in Ancient Rome
Stephanie Long
Get ready to travel back in time to the age of wearing togas, gladiator contests, and chariot races in Ancient Rome. Have you ever wondered what it was like to be an Ancient Roman architect or artist? What engineering principles did they apply to the construction of the Roman road system and intricate aqueducts -- which endure to this day! In this course, students will explore the answers to these questions and more. Taking a STEAM approach to learning, we will learn about Roman numerals and use them to practice math skills at a Roman market and in the Forum. We will walk the streets and examine advanced Roman architecture, and build comparable structures using the engineering principles applied in ancient Rome. We will build Roman chariots for a Gladiator contest in the Roman Amphitheater. We will also travel to Venice to take part in a boat making challenge, and learn the art of Venetian mask making. Let's see where the adventure takes us on our trip back in time.
Blueprint to You
With Catherine Gamboa
What decides your hair color, your nose shape, and how tall you're going to be? Your DNA! In this course, you'll learn all about how your chromosomes are the blueprint that determines how your cells build up to create you! You'll explore how DNA is made, how it causes changes in the cells, and how it can affect your daily life! We'll also talk about some of the great controversies surrounding genetics and genetic testing. Come discover the blueprint to you and find out just what you're made of.
So You Want to Change the World?
Stephanie Dugan
If it was up to you, what world problem would you solve? How have students changed the world in the past? How can you change the world now? In this course, students will become innovators and entrepreneurs to create new ways to solve old problems. Across the globe, kids face many problems, but it is not just up to adults to solve them. We will talk about these problems, and you and your classmates will choose a problem that matters to you, like healthy food, air pollution, disaster relief, animal rights, or saving our planet. As innovators, you will research this problem and develop a creative innovation to solve it. At the end of the course, you will present your innovation and convince adults to fund your idea. The future of our world is up to you; what will you do to change it?
Solar Circuits – Solar Homes
With Margaret Lambert (sessions 1 and 3) and Matthew Caduff (session 2)
Have you ever wanted a disco ball in your bedroom or a colorful porch light? In this course, you will apply the basics of circuitry to light up LED bulbs, turn them on and off, and even design an electrical plan for your very own home. Using the power of PV solar panels and some planning, you’ll be able to design and build your very own solar home. Additionally, you will not only explore the power of solar energy, but will also research where in the world solar energy is used and where it might become more popular one day. Students will grapple with questions such as: Should the United States expand current solar energy usage? What is the ideal energy portfolio for a country? Finally, we will discuss the future of PV cells and dream up the next technological advances that will emerge just around the corner. Come build your future home and light up the world around you!
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
7-8 Afternoon
Architecture: Redesign in Order to Reuse
With Hannah Glatt
Architecture literally surrounds us, new constructions in the suburbs, office spaces downtown and abandoned buildings throughout. What are these buildings’ stories? In this course, you will step into the shoes of a designer and historian in order to reinvent a forgotten space. As a designer, you will start looking at ordinary things in a new way. What are the different elements of a building and how does one create them? But as a historian, you look to the past. How was a previously designed space used and what impact did it have on the people? By combining these two perspectives you will explore the past of forgotten historic structures while creating a new future for them. You will get to redesign a hypothetical existing space in order for it to gain a new purpose and significance. There will be opportunity to draw and research, while letting your imagination take over!
Engineers Can Change the World
With Raina Clasen
Have you ever wondered what an engineer does? Get ready for a class full of tinkering, exploring, and designing! In this course, you will take on the role of an engineer to identify real issues in your community and work to solve one of them with a design team. We will use a four-step process called Design Thinking to help us along the way, which is comprised of “Discovering,” “Empathizing,” “Experimenting,” and “Producing” phases. We’ll learn through collaboration and hands-on experimenting (and have fun doing it!). By the end of the course, you will have solved a real problem and made a positive impact on the world, which is what engineering is all about!
From Hamlet to Black Panther
With Maayan Ornath
“How many times do I have to teach you: just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved?” Did you ever apply this rule from Black Panther to the way you consume modern drama (AKA “movies”)? In this course, you will become playwrights, directors, and actors, as we peel the layers of drama, performance, and script through the centuries and different mediums. With a focus on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Marvel’s Black Panther, with a little Disney's Lion King, we will analyze and discuss how the same core story evolves through the ages; and how this evolution changes the way the audience reacts to the story. You will then create relevant performance art projects (e.g., a script, a performance, a video-art piece) and analyze them using the analytical tools we acquired. Join us today to improve your movie-watching skills!
Periodic Explorations
With Michael Farabaugh
What's your first impression when you see the periodic table: Intimidating? Fascinating? Facts to be memorized for a test? Most chemists will be happy to tell you that the periodic table represents an amazing summary of the building blocks of matter that make up the world around us. In this hands-on course, you will discover a variety of chemical reactions that help us understand various patterns and trends in the periodic table. We will also study the scientists who made important contributions to the table, from Lavoisier and Mendeleev to Seaborg and Hofmann. Both future chemists and non-scientists will find something to capture their interest. You'll go back to "elementary" school in this course as you explore the periodic table!
Religions, Rulers, and Riots
With Peter Morris
Why is it so hard to talk about faith and politics without an argument? Why do both of these topics so often lead to conflict, and has that always been the case? In this class, we will consider several turning points in history where religion and politics shaped the world. From the Great Persecution in the Roman Empire to the Reformation to the modern Civil Rights movement, we will ask how religious traditions influenced and shaped the world during pivotal moments. We will approach these historical events through a variety of media, and students will have the chance to role-play different players in important events that have shaped our world. By engaging in a kind of interactive historiography students will approximate the kind of speculative and critical work that goes into analyzing ancient texts and arguments.
(Super) Human Physics
With Elizabeth Larson
Physics is all around us – and even within us! In this course, we will discover and apply basic physical principles to human bodies and the way they interact with the world around us. From there, we will extrapolate to the case of superhumans, asking and answering questions such as “what would it take to leap over buildings?” or “how would the world look with x-ray vision?” Students will have the opportunity to design and implement their own experiments and use physics to quantify their own sprints, jumps, and throws. Topics covered may include motion, forces, energy, light, electricity, and/or magnetism. This course will be best enjoyed by students who have a solid grasp of one to two years of algebra, and some basic familiarity with geometry.
The Energizers and Catalyzers in the Biochemical Process
With Viness Eugene
Come join me as we learn about the basics of biochemistry. In doing so, we will address several key questions in the exciting field of BIOCHEMISTRY. What role does biochemistry play in our daily lives, in our bodies, and in the environment? Why is understanding the biochemical process important? To answer these key questions, all while examining their own fun biochemical pathways, students will be members of a team of principal investigators. As mini-investigators, they will research, investigate, test and analyze findings on biochemical experiments. They will investigate how their role as a biochemist in training reflects a pivotal research component and can lead to exciting discoveries.