Fund A Need
Fund A Need: The New Upper School Innovation Lab
Innovators Welcome!
By the time St. Margaret’s students are in the Upper School, they are accomplished academics on a well-charted path to college. They have honed their study in rigorous coursework across all academic disciplines. They have explored and taken chances in leadership and service opportunities. Our curriculum and teachers have purposefully nurtured their critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, and independent voices and interests.
We know that our world greatly needs these skills in our future generations and those who posses them will lead, serve and thrive in the 21st century.
We feel strongly that an increasingly critical role of a St. Margaret’s education is to enable these maturing minds to deepen exploration of their ideas, passions and the world they will inherit. This will continue through stimulating and challenging curriculum, but also in providing them the tools, the room and the authority to explore, create, solve and innovate on their own.
Call it a student think tank or a creativity hotbed. The new Upper School Innovation Lab is a place for innovators. Thinkers. Entrepreneurs. For grappling with challenging real-world problems and issues. A place for audacious claims and bold steps. For intense discussions, messy problem solving and experimentation. For breakthrough design and prototyping. Idea sharing and collaborative project development.
How do we make that happen? First, our students are already there. They are open, thoughtful, inquisitive and creative. They possess innate ability to use the technology at their disposal to address and even solve profound issues. We must provide them the tools and the space and then, simply get out of their way!
Like the ICE Lab that opened last year, St. Margaret’s continues to re-imagine the classroom and evolve the traditional computer lab. The Lab will be a transformative learning space that paves the way for creativity and innovation.
It will be a highly flexible, adaptable space, equipped with state-of-the-art technology, writable walls used as blank canvases and comfortable, customizable furnishings. While classes will be encouraged to use the Lab, we imagine the space being used primarily for small group meetings and individual study for all kinds of work in science, engineering, technology, robotics, mathematics, design, arts.
To some, the Lab will look and feel like one part design studio, one part futuristic industrial workshop, one part tech lounge, but to our young 21st century thinkers, it will feel like a native space for their active minds to be unleashed.
If you are unable to attend “An Evening of Mardi Gras” and would like to support the 2012 Fund A Need: the new Upper School Innovation Lab, please contact Director of Advancement Lara Farhadi, lara.farhadi@smes.org or 949.661.0108 ext. 353.