A ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, Oct. 18, marked the official opening of the SmartLab at James Hart School. More than 100 community residents, parents and students gathered in the lab that converted the resource center in the former Millennium School into a designated SmartLab.
3-D printing program in the new SmartLab. (Photos
by Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)
A ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, Oct. 18, marked the official opening of the SmartLab at James Hart School.
More than 100 community residents, parents and students gathered in the lab that converted the resource center in the former Millennium School into a designated SmartLab.
The District 153 school board investigated SmartLabs around the Chicago area during the 2015-16 school year and decided to invest $348,000 for the latest technology. Partners offering financial assistance included Foundation 153, Canadian National and the Homewood Rotary Foundation.
Kirkland Benson about his
SmartLab project.
The SmartLab gives Hart students access to computer programs that let them investigate the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and creative media arts (CMA). Students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades will be on 12-week rotations in the lab working on STEM and CMA projects.
An introductory video about the SmartLab created by seventh graders Aaron Latman and Ellie Wojcikowski gave guests an overview of what students are able to do in the lab.
“The more we saw, the more we didn’t want to wait on this. We couldn’t wait another year. It would have been a missed opportunity” for District 153 students, Shelly Marks, school board president, told the audience.
Alfredo, and nephews Nico
and Mateo Torres, about the
work he’s doing in the
SmartLab.
Unlike a classroom setting, the lab lets students explore on their own from more than 300 topics, Marks said. Teachers working in the lab are facilitators rather than instructors. It’s the students who are working on projects such as digital communications, robotics, web page designs and music production, she noted.
“This is where future careers are created; where they find their passion,” Marks said.
Students have been busy investigating a host of topics and developing projects in the new lab since late August and were happy to show off their work.
President Shelly Marks,
partially hidden by a sign,
thanks supporters for their
donations to the SmartLab.
Rita Davenport, left,
represented Foundation
153; Jim Kvedaris, center,
represented CN; and
Rick Thiernau represented
the Homewood Rotary
Foundation.
Melanie Orozco and Lily Bosch paired up on their first projects. The eighth graders worked on Tinker CAD 3-D printer software to create mugs that had their names on them. They then used Scratch software to create a movie using programming code for animation for their computer characters known as sprites.
Parent Bob Kossak, whose son, Nathan, is a sixth grader, got to speak with eighth grader Kirkland Benson, who with his partner Liam Bertz, created a project using Photoshop.
“We had to think of a setting, and then what kind of character we wanted,” Benson said. They started with an ox that was on the moon, then dressed him up with antlers and a helmet. It was a fun project for the pair.
“I’m impressed,” Kossak said of the SmartLab. “It’s really neat.”
Alan Ferreira and Kobie Davis worked on a Photoshop project. Alan said every day they learned to do something new with the computer experimenting with text, borders and enhancing photos.
“Using Photoshop Elements got me interested in what I could do,” Alan said.
To see projects the students have created visit https://sites.google.com/site/pesinacma/e-portfolio