Sustainable Concert Design & Light Sculpture Art Show

My Students

We need high quality, student-inspired Project Based Learning now more than ever. Our school adopts a rigorous, comprehensive model of PBL that encourages students to explore the world by engaging in long term, meaningful projects that emphasize creativity, iteration, play, and depth over breadth.

My students are the most dedicated people I have ever met.

Although I spend more than two hours every day in my car getting to and from my tiny school in rural Vermont, those hours are spent eagerly brainstorming the latest possibilities for design projects that we'll all create together. Students and faculty value unique experiences that emphasize creativity and authenticity in equal measure. In biology, students will learn about cell theory, biomolecules, and microbiology by creating and marketing their own soap to the community and internet; Earth science will engineer an "alternate Earth" in a Sci-Fi action narrative that combines lawful tectonic processes in new ways; physics will curate a maker culture 'Break It & Build It' community art show using Newton's laws and electricity; and AP Environmental Science is using their knowledge to engineer the set, creative lighting, and energy analysis for our early December student-led band production. Problem is... we need backing.

My Project

AP Environmental Science students are already hard at work studying global and local community energy usage, and how it influences our lives, ecosystems, and sustainable practice - including evaluating our own footprint as a school. As part of a collaborative project between science and the performing arts, APES students are designing and implementing a set and lighting design for our school band's famous fall community concert (this year, a folk opera influenced by the ocean's plastic pollution). In addition to analyzing and making recommendations for more energy efficient systems within our performing arts center, students are creating the stage design using high efficiency light sculptures crafted exclusively from recyclable plastic bottles in new and creative ways. At the opening of the event and prior to the interactive concert, students will present their data, conclusions, cost analyses, and recommendations for sustainable future practice as a culminating exhibition.

With no budget for this year, students are in danger of compromising their dreams of a project that has the potential for creating a tremendous impact on those involved.

In addition to raising community awareness, LED lighting will also to continue the evolution of our students' science design space, cut costs for electricity, replace institutional overhead fluorescents, and continue to revitalize the lab as a place where students want to be, where anything is possible, and where ideas are born.