Bronxville School students and families participated in a variety of hands-on workshops that challenged them to use their imagination and creativity and work together during the annual Spring Innovation Expo on April 19. The family-school partnership event was designed to celebrate the creative and innovative spirit across the school community.
“Throughout the evening, parents, students and faculty members engaged in playful explorations of design thinking, and created delightful juxtapositions of seemingly disparate disciplines such as mathematics and art, and science and poetry,” said Professional Development Coordinator Denise Lutter, who organized the event.
One of the workshops challenged participants to build the tallest straw structure that could support a tennis ball, while another workshop encouraged participants to use the principles of physics to create a rollercoaster from a variety of materials and test its capacity with marbles. In the Breakout EDU workshop, participants were immersed in a learning game – similar to “Escape the Room” – that required problem-solving, analytical thinking and teamwork to unlock a box secured with different sets of locks. In other workshops, participants learned how to create their own video game controllers out of everyday household materials, while the Math Craft workshop engaged participants in creating parabolic curves using a ruler, pencil and a piece of paper. Other students presented their independent projects, including multiple documentary films and original plays, as well as a discussion on the four-year investigation of the water quality of the Bronx River.
“The Innovation Expo was a wonderful celebration of emerging scholarship, educational risk-taking and creative collaboration,” Lutter said.