This project was born out of a desire to enhance STEAM driven and inquiry based learning options for students at my school. The kernel of the idea formed through a discussion with two colleagues as we rode the bus back from the 10th grade outdoor education camping trip in Joshua Tree National Park in October, 2014. Glen came up with it first. He asked if Jim and I thought that we could offer a team taught, inquiry based elective that delved into a topic or theme from many disparate disciplines simultaneously. We each knew that the administration was interested in interdisciplinary learning and hoped to see a STEAM initiative arise organically from within the faculty. Each of the three of us are passionate about our teaching content area and though we did not want to dilute the talent pool from electives already well established, we wanted to explore the idea of creating a model for team taught, STEAM inspired electives at Campbell Hall that were hands-on at their core.
Over the next several months the three of us met together regularly and mapped out the general framework for the course. This curriculum package represents a significant portion of the Science, Technology, and Engineering, component. Jim teaches music and Glen teaches creative writing. We each have a number of lessons outlined in a shared Google document that served as the basis for this package. We intend to submit the elective to the UC system for approval and inclusion on the list of accredited courses and have the support of independent professionals such as Soon-Jo Chung of the Aerospace Control and Robotics group at the University of Illinois Urbana – Champagne and Greg Maryniak of the X Prize Foundation. Greg has offered his considerable expertise on the subject of flight and discussed the idea of help us create a flight simulator with some of his own equipment. Soon-Jo Chung regularly works at the nearby Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the summer months and volunteered to be a guest presenter if we run the course with our Summer Enrichment Pilot Program (SEPP). Aerovironment is also a local company formerly headed by Paul MacCready who designed the Gossamer Albatross which was the first human powered aircraft to cross the English Channel. They have a ‘nano-hummingbird’ robot that is capable of hovering flight and uses rapidly beating wings to maneuver in tight spaces very effectively.
In my fifteen years of teaching, I’ve learned that students prefer to be actively engaged with the material in question. Inquiry based learning offers this to them as part of the day-to-day classroom experience. The time required by the lessons under the designation ‘hands-on experimentation’ means that students will be out of their seats and actively engaged in the business of creation for the majority of the course. We are fortunate to have much of the needed equipment for these lessons on our campus, and a supportive director of advancement who is invested in helping find donors for additional resources.
I’ve been a dedicated bird watcher since 1992 and regularly lead field trips at the Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival. Through my interest in bird watching, I’ve been able to travel to Israel, Sweden, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil and Costa Rica. Though not a ‘twitcher’, I’ve been blessed to have the chance to observe more than one thousand different species in the wild. Long before developing an interest in birds however, I have been fascinated by the prospect of human flight. As a boy of five or six years of age, I would retire after dinner to the quiet porch outside my childhood home in Laconia New Hampshire. There I would silently pray to God for the ability to fly. I was convinced then that the almighty would bestow this great gift upon me, so I would leap from the porch over and over, arms outstretched in a superman pose, only to tumble to the grass three feet below. Though that was in 1974, I can remember the view of the lake and the smell of the damp ground like it was yesterday. These 42 years later, I am inspired by the heroic aerial accomplishments of Yves Rossy the Jetman and his protégé, Vince Reffet and know that our human relationship with flight continues to evolve. In eight years of authoring a blog (Great Blue Machine) on innovation in flight, I’ve been fortunate to develop relationships with a good number of innovators in the field including Dr. Wolfgang Send in Germany. Dr. Send was instrumental in the development of the 500 gram Smartbird and has been steadily working on a 50kg version during the last two years. The practical result of this masters program and curriculum package is that I will be in the position to offer students a unique educational experience. Ultimately, I would like to see the course be offered in a distance-learning format with a summer institute in applied bio-inspired robotics hosted at Campbell Hall for students from around the Los Angeles area. Dr. Send has a well established but similar program in Germany and has offered to host a number of talented American students in an exchange program.
While he feels that it will be difficult for students to develop machines with the technical sophistication of Smartbird while still in high school, we agree that students can certainly gain proficiency with the design, 3D printing and fabrication of intricate flapping winged robots.
This initiative along with the summer STEAM camp and collaborative partnership with UCLA’s Frye Lab for Research in Neurobiology constitute my initial effort as the new science department chair to enhance interdisciplinary inquiry-based learning at Campbell Hall. I’m happy to share the news that our partnership with UCLA has attracted 45 students to participate in the development of the research platform this fall, with more than ten coming into the lab during their free time each Tuesday. Our director of advancement has found a donor who is willing to make a substantial contribution to help offset some of the costs anticipated as we move the lab into a new space and expand its capabilities for next year. Dr. Sara Wasserman is working with me to develop a two-semester sequence for 11th and 12th graders that is inherently student centered and inquiry driven. At its core, our UCLA partnership closely follows the MOIRL model described in the literature review, with a post doctoral researcher leading students in the process of independent, student generated research that is tied to the goals of the partnering institution. This ‘Flight Plan’ curriculum package represents an additional effort to embrace the MOIRL model through student driven inquiry in an interdisciplinary learning environment. A semester elective in flight that has students designing and building a wind tunnel, 3D printing feathers and ornithopters, while also engaging in creative writing and musical composition is certainly a novel approach to inquiry. If this course can evolve to generate useful data for a PI such as Professor Soon-Jo Chung at UIUC, then students benefit all the more.
This curriculum project comes in the midst of a challenging transition for me personally and for the science department. Our former chair led capably for 15 years before stepping down at the end of the last school year. Stepping into his big shoes while completing coursework for this master’s and launching new initiatives at Campbell Hall has resulted in my feeling harried at times, but the tremendous growth and learning opportunities have more than made up for any loss of sleep. The development of this curriculum package represents a significant achievement for me as an educator. With a well-defined framework and large assemblage of resources, students who ‘take flight’ will be in for a transformative experience. I look forward to working with colleagues to refine plans and critically evaluate additional lesson ideas to further enhance course constructs. A longer term goal associated with this course is to develop a summer field ornithology class that initially runs for five days. While not as student centered in nature, students would travel together in one or two 12 passenger vans to specific locations around the Los Angeles basin with binoculars and field guides. We’d meet with local experts from the Audubon Society and work on bird identification by sight and sound. We’d focus on making careful observations and submit daily checklists to the citizen science portal called Ebird. Students could take both courses in sequence during a summer and ultimately earn some recognition from Janine Benyus at the Biomimicry Institute as well.
In my long relationship with Campbell Hall, I’ve understood it to be a unique educational institution. After graduating from the University of Miami in 1991, I worked for Naturalists at Large, an outdoor education company based in Ventura. We served the experiential education needs of dozens of independent schools in California, from La Jolla Country Day in San Diego to Harvard Westlake, Marlborough, St. Matthews, Milken Community School in LA and even a number of schools in the Bay area. To a naturalist, each and every one of us requested to work with Campbell Hall each season. Their outings were consistently ambitious to be sure, but what drew us were the teachers and students. Their camaraderie, positive attitudes and zest for adventure made each trip memorable, even in occasionally unpleasant conditions.
Our graduation ceremony is held at Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA each spring and the students themselves seem to embody some of the ‘magic’ that Disney has shared with all of us over the years. Time and again, I am moved deeply by their generosity, spirit of inclusivity, and raw talent. We attend chapel service together as a community twice each week and often, the gathering represents an opportunity for students to showcase musical strengths but dance, and acting are also featured. Students offer samples of debate class, read poetry and share film from the video production class. In each case, the magic shines through. This is not to say that ours is a model school free from conflict or need of improvement. Perhaps some of the magic stems from an administration that supports the teachers in endeavors both in and out of the classroom. This STEAM program at USD has been made possible through the support of my administration. While at times course requirements meant that a particular lesson plan had to be tried ‘as is’ and without the ideal amount of preparation, I have always been happy and secure in the knowledge that my peers, students and administrators were encouraging me onward. The last 18 months have been momentous ones. It is due to this program at USD that I am able to step in as science department chair and begin to implement my vision for STEAM driven, inquiry-based learning. The program itself has influenced my approach to teaching tremendously. From specific steps such as the development of a Twitter profile and assimilation of web-based resources like timetoast and popplet, to holistic changes such as research driven pedagogy and frequent action research efforts, my relationship with teaching has grown infinitely more rewarding.
This initiative along with the summer STEAM camp and collaborative partnership with UCLA’s Frye Lab for Research in Neurobiology constitute my initial effort as the new science department chair to enhance interdisciplinary inquiry-based learning at Campbell Hall. I’m happy to share the news that our partnership with UCLA has attracted 45 students to participate in the development of the research platform this fall, with more than ten coming into the lab during their free time each Tuesday. Our director of advancement has found a donor who is willing to make a substantial contribution to help offset some of the costs anticipated as we move the lab into a new space and expand its capabilities for next year. Dr. Sara Wasserman is working with me to develop a two-semester sequence for 11th and 12th graders that is inherently student centered and inquiry driven. At its core, our UCLA partnership closely follows the MOIRL model described in the literature review, with a post doctoral researcher leading students in the process of independent, student generated research that is tied to the goals of the partnering institution. This ‘Flight Plan’ curriculum package represents an additional effort to embrace the MOIRL model through student driven inquiry in an interdisciplinary learning environment. A semester elective in flight that has students designing and building a wind tunnel, 3D printing feathers and ornithopters, while also engaging in creative writing and musical composition is certainly a novel approach to inquiry. If this course can evolve to generate useful data for a PI such as Professor Soon-Jo Chung at UIUC, then students benefit all the more.
This curriculum project comes in the midst of a challenging transition for me personally and for the science department. Our former chair led capably for 15 years before stepping down at the end of the last school year. Stepping into his big shoes while completing coursework for this master’s and launching new initiatives at Campbell Hall has resulted in my feeling harried at times, but the tremendous growth and learning opportunities have more than made up for any loss of sleep. The development of this curriculum package represents a significant achievement for me as an educator. With a well-defined framework and large assemblage of resources, students who ‘take flight’ will be in for a transformative experience. I look forward to working with colleagues to refine plans and critically evaluate additional lesson ideas to further enhance course constructs. A longer term goal associated with this course is to develop a summer field ornithology class that initially runs for five days. While not as student centered in nature, students would travel together in one or two 12 passenger vans to specific locations around the Los Angeles basin with binoculars and field guides. We’d meet with local experts from the Audubon Society and work on bird identification by sight and sound. We’d focus on making careful observations and submit daily checklists to the citizen science portal called Ebird. Students could take both courses in sequence during a summer and ultimately earn some recognition from Janine Benyus at the Biomimicry Institute as well.
In my long relationship with Campbell Hall, I’ve understood it to be a unique educational institution. After graduating from the University of Miami in 1991, I worked for Naturalists at Large, an outdoor education company based in Ventura. We served the experiential education needs of dozens of independent schools in California, from La Jolla Country Day in San Diego to Harvard Westlake, Marlborough, St. Matthews, Milken Community School in LA and even a number of schools in the Bay area. To a naturalist, each and every one of us requested to work with Campbell Hall each season. Their outings were consistently ambitious to be sure, but what drew us were the teachers and students. Their camaraderie, positive attitudes and zest for adventure made each trip memorable, even in occasionally unpleasant conditions.
Our graduation ceremony is held at Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA each spring and the students themselves seem to embody some of the ‘magic’ that Disney has shared with all of us over the years. Time and again, I am moved deeply by their generosity, spirit of inclusivity, and raw talent. We attend chapel service together as a community twice each week and often, the gathering represents an opportunity for students to showcase musical strengths but dance, and acting are also featured. Students offer samples of debate class, read poetry and share film from the video production class. In each case, the magic shines through. This is not to say that ours is a model school free from conflict or need of improvement. Perhaps some of the magic stems from an administration that supports the teachers in endeavors both in and out of the classroom. This STEAM program at USD has been made possible through the support of my administration. While at times course requirements meant that a particular lesson plan had to be tried ‘as is’ and without the ideal amount of preparation, I have always been happy and secure in the knowledge that my peers, students and administrators were encouraging me onward. The last 18 months have been momentous ones. It is due to this program at USD that I am able to step in as science department chair and begin to implement my vision for STEAM driven, inquiry-based learning. The program itself has influenced my approach to teaching tremendously. From specific steps such as the development of a Twitter profile and assimilation of web-based resources like timetoast and popplet, to holistic changes such as research driven pedagogy and frequent action research efforts, my relationship with teaching has grown infinitely more rewarding.