Tuesday, October 18 was Maker Day around the globe and students in the Oak Knoll Lower School were up for the challenge. They enthusiastically entered the IDEAS Lab — one of two well-equipped maker spaces on the Oak Knoll campus — in sessions throughout the day to tackle challenges released by the Global Maker Day website, as well as a few challenges cooked up by Associate Director of Technology, Integration, and Innovation Kimberly Connolly.

Grade two exercised their project-based learning skills to work in small groups and construct toys inspired by nature. One section of grade 3 constructed creative Halloween candy dispensers while the other section worked in teams to build elaborate Rube Goldberg devices. Their challenge was to design a device that would incorporate three separate displays of kinetic energy. One section of grade four used special 3D pens that excrete melted plastic to draw three dimensional crosses (as they would normally have been in their religion class), while the other section used available materials to construct models of the James Webb space telescope (as they would have normally been in their science class).

Throughout the day, the large screen TV in the makerspace was connected to a media feed produced by the Global Maker Day organizers so that students could witness creative projects underway throughout the world. Mrs. Connolly also posted images of our students making their way through the project-based challenges on social media using the hashtag #GlobalMakerDay.

Various core teachers also joined the students in the IDEAS Lab throughout the day including: Mrs. Cherill (Science), Mrs. Mercogliano (Math), Mrs. Castello (Library), and Mrs. Hoke (Religion).

The Lower School embraces project-based learning, STEAM, and the Maker Culture in a vibrant curriculum that always strives to empower students to take responsibility for their learning and flourish as individual learners and leaders, while also connecting students to the wider world and global community.