<img class="size-full wp-image-7684 alignleft lazyload" src="http://www.bishopodowd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/sawing_activities.jpg" alt="sawing_activities" width="500" height="395" srcset="https://www.bishopodowd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/sawing_activities.jpg 500w, https://www.bishopodowd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/sawing_activities-300x237.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" />Recently, at a conference on student research, one of the speakers commented on the dilemma facing the current generation of young people. “The bad news”, he said, “is that the Millennials are inheriting the mess made by the Boomers.” He continued, “The good news is that they get the exciting challenge of inventing the next civilization.” This will involve a working set of skills complementary to academic content and involve designing and managing the natural, designed, and social worlds.
With this in mind the Design Hub is up and running for the Fall of 2016. The vision behind the Hub is not so much to be a “There” as to be a “How.” The Hub provides materials, supplies, tools, guidance, for students to direct their own design efforts and then execute on those ideas. The Hub supports classroom projects, club activities, personal undertakings, student government, campus ministry and other co-curricular needs – it is for the student to decide. While the Hub is intended as a student resource, teachers and staff can make use it for curriculum development and classroom support.
In order to get the Hub off the ground, the school is piloting use of the Physics room as a place to begin, as many of the materials and tools needed are already there in support of the Science classes in the room. The room is available before and after school and at MP. There is a collection of ready-to-go projects to get the students started using the Hub as they get the hang of being student directed. One project is a foam board box for recycled copier paper and another is an ornithopter made from reused materials. The hope is to make the supplies used as sustainable as possible by reusing materials.
Materials for reuse are always welcome. You can bring your yogurt cups, TP tubes, old art supplies, green strawberry baskets, scrap cloth, coat hangers, and the like to room 110. Unfortunately, space is limited so smaller items are better.