Category Archives: Place-based Learning

Remaking Learning: Hampton School District

Each spring Remake Learning, a regional organization that brings together K-12 education, out-of-school providers, higher education, and community partners, sponsors a series of activities around the Pittsburgh region that showcases kids at play and learning. This year Remake Learning sponsored 175 in-person and virtual events in the Pittsburgh region between May 12-23, 2022. I had a chance to visit the Hampton School District in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh to see Remake Learning in action.

The tour group started at one of Hampton’s elementary buildings, Central Elementary School. We waited in what the school calls the living room. It’s wonderful to see how schools have placed comfortable furniture in the lobby of buildings to reduce any tension for parents or visitors. Once the group was in place, the building principal, Amy Kern, shared the agenda for our visit. 

Photos by Norton Gusky CC BY 2.0

The artwork behind Amy came from a project with the schools’ first artist in residence. The artist-in-residence worked with teachers and kids on the project. It’s a great example of infusing the arts into the curriculum. The art piece really is the welcoming showcase for the building. 

Central Elementary transformed two courtyard areas into incredible learning spaces. Amy Kern and one of her staff members gave a short slide presentation to show how the space became transformed and who were the key players. Hampton has a very strong educational organization that works with local businesses and corporations to raise money. The school also found funding from local foundations and businesses. Today the result is a Nature and Sensory Garden and an Outdoor Learning Lab where just an outdoor garden had been until last year. Hampton tapped into its students, faculty and staff to design the spaces. They also enlisted the assistance of two local businesses who provided the technical support for the construction – Blue Fox Landscape and Lady Fox. The spaces were designed to provide hands-on, project-based, outdoor learning spaces aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.

It was wonderful to see the kids engaged in a variety of hands-on activities. The young lady on the left is an “Ambassador.” She not only takes people on tours of the garden, but she has been part of the outreach to younger students. The kids on the right are working on a series of STEM (engineering) challenges. The students have to assemble these large building blocks into operational structures working with a team of fellow students. 

From Central we jumped back into our vehicles and drove down the road to the Middle School. The Middle School principal, a former math teacher, was challenged by the superintendent to rethink a courtyard area that housed a collection of stuffed animals. The space had no real learning purpose. She reached out to her staff and students and they came up with a design for a Learning Pavilion. She enlisted the help of the Children’s Museum and Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. The Learning Pavilion serves the needs of all teachers and students. It’s a modular construction that provides for a variety of group activities. Teachers bring their own manipulatives to the pavilion and then divide their class into working teams. In a future phase a student team will build a hydroponics station where they’ll grow basil that they’ll give to the Pittsburgh Food Bank. The space also incorporates an interactive, augmented reality environment using CMU’s ARCADE system to position the animations, build interactive narratives, or layer content to the real-world environment.

I actually forgot to share our first stop at the middle school. We went into the library where high school students from the AP Research class were available to share their work along with a team of AP Computer Science students who had created Edtech solutions. I had several wonderful conversations with students who did research on topics like Critical Race Theory in Schools and physical training ways to improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s. Each student was incredibly articulate and were well prepared. The Computer Science guys (yes there were no girls) tackled software issues, like the tutoring program at the high school, and a virtual reality setup for weight lifting without the weights. 

After lunch we had a chance to visit a variety of classrooms that included a Robotics Studio, Innovation Studio, Print Studio, TV Studio, and the Learning Pavilion. Each space showcased Hampton’s desire for collaborative, interactive, project-based learning. Teachers deploy Human-Centered Design activities to engage students in brainstorming ideas as well as concept building. The furniture allows students to write on the table surfaces so they can creatively share their ideas. Students tap into traditional arts, such as printing, as well as technological tools such as 3-D printers, Hummingbirds, Finch, Sphero, Cosmos and other robotic tools.

My visit to the Hampton School District demonstrated several key points:

  • Technology is not the solution. It’s a tool that enables and accelerates learning opportunities ;
  • Effective learning solutions require partnerships with community, parent, and school groups and organizations;
  • Higher education can play a key role bringing and supporting emerging technologies, such as AR or VR;
  • Ultimately it’s about the kids. They are not just the audience. They are the creators and evaluators.

museumlab: Raise the Beam on Learning

About seven years ago I had a conversation with Jane Werner, the Executive Director for the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, where she mentioned that the Children’s Museum hoped to extend its educational programming to the former Carnegie Library, next door to its current building. I kept that tidbit of information in the back of my mind until I was challenged as a Board Member for the Manchester Academic Charter School (MACS) to think about where we could move our middle school students. We had outgrown our home on Liverpool Avenue and needed to find a permanent location. We had engaged an architect to look at building onto the existing site, but I was not pleased with the cost for what we would get. So, I brought up the idea of moving to the Carnegie Library to Larry Berger, the MACS Board member who was in touch with Jane Werner through his work with SLB Radio, housed in the basement of the current Children’s Museum. Larry suggested we ask Jane about the opportunity to move MACS to the Carnegie Library site. We brought up the idea to Vas Scoumis, the CEO for MACS, and that started the conversation for MACS’s involvement with “musemlab”™.

By April 2019 museumlab will become a reality – a learning laboratory where play and education will intersect, where tinkering, building and  making will be part of the educational world. According to the Children’s Museum website: The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is growing with the creation of museumlab™, a place where youth eight and older can work with makers to create everything from furniture to apps, experiment with cutting edge technology in the creation of art, climb 3 stories on a unique sculpture, collaborate on one-of-a-kind art installations and more!

MACS will find its home on the second floor and mezzanine. On the first floor there will be public spaces for organizations and exploration by children. In the basement SLB Radio will have a new digital media studio. The museumlab partners include:

It’s an exciting opportunity for other schools, non-profits, and out-of-school programs to collaborate. The Children’s Museum has two Learning Scientists on staff who will work with the partners to use the museumlab as a place for research. How can a school take the best practices from a museum and incorporate them into a more traditional approach to learning? How can students and teachers become researchers and investigate ways for greater civic engagement and social responsibility? These are some of the possible questions that museumlab may address.