Walking across the bridge Thursday on my way to the swimming pool for the Regatta, I stopped to see what art teacher Deda O’Connell was studying. Looking down at the side of the creek below, I saw a small installation of Earth Art. Deda proceeded to point out two other natural installations in the vicinity, one so subtle that I would not have recognized it as a piece of art at first glance.
I congratulated her and applauded her students on these charming displays of artistic expression that are gradually emerging around the campus, beautiful efforts to engage the natural surroundings in interesting and unexpected ways.
The noisy chanting of the students at the regatta reminded us to pick up our pace so we didn’t miss the start of the races. The regatta involves groups of 7th and 8th graders who team up to build a boat out of cardboard and duct tape that they then race across the swimming pool. Boats vary dramatically in shape and size, with one team using a simple one foot by one foot box (not so successful—it sank almost immediately), several teams utilizing elaborate designs including a Viking ship and “The Watermelon Express”, and one team building a 6 foot, sleek missile-style boat that smoothly glided across the water. The after-school staff even submitted an entry this year, with after-school staff member and traffic assistant Dhimant gallantly guiding the school bus themed boat across the water—until it sank and he swam in the rest of the way.
The eventual winner—created by 8th graders Emma Hewlin and Leah Robbie—was a simple design that proved extremely effective. In the end, everyone cheered and celebrated the creativity, the athleticism, the enthusiasm, the passion, and the spirit of our students.
On my way back up the hill, I veered over to the digging area near the 2nd grade classrooms. I found a passionate group of 2nd grade builders gathered around a three foot tall, student-made dirt mountain. I learned that they had been working on this for several weeks and marveled as they demonstrated how they could drop a marble down different pathways of the dirt hill. Perhaps the most impressive part was a ramp that started at the top in the dirt and finished off with a curved piece of bark. As I stood there, the children cheered enthusiastically as the marble successfully went from the top all the way to the bottom.
This weekend, a group of our 5th and 6th graders will be participating in the Maker’s Faire up in San Mateo. This will be the culmination of several months of work in Ms. Flores science classes, providing our 5th graders an opportunity to showcase their class-wide Rube Goldberg project and the 6th graders their little tiny houses project. Both projects involve complex challenges, forcing students to design original solutions to complicated problems.
Reflecting on these disparate activities that are occurring throughout our campus—some part of our formal curriculum, some part of our informal curriculum, and some student-driven projects that emerge entirely from our children’s imaginations—I am inspired to see how our students are embracing the opportunity to be creators, builders, designers, artists, visionaries, and problem solvers.
Astronaut Mary Ellen Weber, the final speaker in the CTE Speaker Series, had our students on the edges of their seats on Wednesday as she shared stories about how zero gravity feels (“like having a gorilla on your chest”), how fast the space shuttle travels (17,500 mph), and, in response to student questions, how one goes to the bathroom in space (our bodies work the same, she noted, but the toilet is very different). Someone also asked her about aliens. She mentioned the research currently happening with the Curiosity rover on Mars and noted that if they discover life on Mars it would suggest life is ubiquitous in the universe. Even without that, she seemed to suggest that life likely existed in some form somewhere out there.
At the end of the presentation, she told the students that while she had experienced amazing adventures in her lifetime, they would be nothing compared to the adventures that the children in the audience could experience in their future. “Look to your left, look to your right. One of you in this audience might be the first person to set foot on Mars,” she said.
Given what I’ve seen around campus this week, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an entire group of Hillbrook graduates designing an artistic, dirt-inspired, Rube Goldberg project on Mars. Who knows? Maybe they’ll even be collaborating with aliens.