Design Thinking at The Nueva School

Each summer in the hills above Silicon Valley, The Nueva School hosts the Design Thinking Institute for an international cadre of teachers and administrators who are interested in in depth instruction in human centered design. Grace Judge and Gabrielle Russomagno attended the institute last week where they were able to work with education pioneer Kim Saxe, founder of IDEO David Kelly, and business guru Patrick Van der Pijl.  The lessons learned at the institute will radiate through the Academy in the fall in ED21 initiatives in each division as well as Challenge GA, and Upper School initiative designed to introduce the students and faculty to the culture, language, and process of human centered design.

Middle School Green Ambassadors Honoring Graduates One Sapling at a Time

Some of the most impressive features of Germantown Academy's LEED (Leading in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certified campus are the outdoor spaces that connect directly to curriculum across the school. The  Academic Courtyard, Green Roof, Apiary, Greenhouse, and Preserve are veritable classrooms, driving curriculum in science and art alike. They provide rich extracurricular opportunities for students as well.  The Green Ambassadors club, organized by faculty in each division of the school has a fairly simple mission, make the Germantown Academy campus environment healthier. Science teachers, Maura Saurman and Rollie Wakemen, coordinate the club in the middle school. This year, they launched The Acorn Project that helps students have a voice in the direction of the green spaces while honoring our graduating seniors. According to Wakeman, "The goal of The Acorn Project is to raise oak tree seedlings from acorns found on campus to gift them to the seniors during graduation practice.  The hope is that some of the graduates will plant their oak tree as a remembrance of the life they started at GA that continues to grow once they leave.  By doing this project students learned the difficulty in collecting and growing oak trees from acorns.  We are waiting with baited breath to see if we end up with enough for every senior to have one."  When students aren't spending their Tuesday lunch period in the science lab with Wakeman and Saurman, they are typically found designing pamphlets and writing scripts for the tours they give of the green spaces on campus. 

What We Are Watching

Salman Khan, hedge fund analyst turned education innovator founded the Khan Academy, an online source of over 2,200 streaming educational videos in a range of disciplines, comments on transforming education in this TED Talk.

What We Are Reading

Paul Tough, contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, former Senior Editor of This American Life, and author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, looks at character as the most important asset to a child's success in  How Children Succeed.  From his website:


"The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control."

1st Grade Science Students Grow Mini Organic Gardens

Lisa Martin, lower school science teacher has been long known for her innovative approach to science education. A frequent collaborator with teachers across the divisions and at The Community Partnership School, the MicroGarden Project grew out of a conversation she had with Eric Jones of CPS. They were discussing how to integrate more scientific inquiry into their program, since they don’t have land for a raised bed organic garden and they can’t leave a standing indoor grow lab in their multipurpose rooms.  Lisa reports that

"The positive effect of school gardening programs on the science achievement of elementary students is well documented in educational research.  The role of raising edible gardens in nutrition-education programs for youth is well documented in research, as well.  But not every educator can organize, fund, and/or maintain an organic schoolyard garden.  Likewise, there might also be classroom space, time and/or budget constraints that don’t allow for a standing, indoor grow lab, either.  This prompted me to develop “Growing a Mini Edible Organic Garden in Your Classroom”.

Growing a Mini Edible Organic Garden in Your Classroom is acollection of science activities that I crafted to provide any elementary educator with a means to introduce organic agriculture, nutrition, and plant biology to their students in the context of practicing scientific skills, all within the confines of the classroom, on a shoestring budget, and within a short period of time.  For some teachers, this is the only means available to them. For others, this can be an adjunct to their wealth of science activities.

How I am using it in 1st Grade:

During the last three weeks of May, I am using microgreens in my 1st Grade science classes as an innovative way to study both seed germination and nutrition. Moreover, microgreens enable our 1st Grade students to grow a vegetable--organically and expeditiously--for consumption in their annual breakfast at the end of May. Microgreens are young seedlings of edible vegetables and herbs harvested less than 14 days after germination.  Researchers have found that microgreens can contain up to 40 times higher levels of vital nutrients than their mature counterparts, making them “super nutritious foods”. 

What We Are Reading

With over twenty books translated into thirty languages, Howard Gardner, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Senior Director of Project Zero, has been at the forefront of innovation education for decades.  His theory of multiple intelligences outlined in 1983 was groundbreaking establishing the idea that we have different ways of learning and processing.  In Five Minds for The Future he details the mindsets the future demands of students in schools today.

Game Changing App in PE

Upper School PE teacher and Varsity Field Hockey coach, Ginny Hofmann, along with many of the coaches at GA have a new assistant on the field in the form of an APP called Coaches Eye that is radically transforming real time video capture analysis of an athlete's form.  According to Hofmann who has been using this tool most recently with students in their Archery unit, "Coach’s Eye lets me film students in my PE classes and then send them clips via e-mail that they can watch. I can record a student, draw corrective form lines on the touch screen, record a voice over describing how to alter and fix form, and email it to the individual. I sent all my archery students clips of them shooting so they could see their technique with in a matter of minutes." Ginny Hoffman reports that,  "Students enjoy seeing themselves on film but also it helps them realize what they are doing. Often students think they are using correct form when in fact they are doing something completely different. It helps recognize mistakes and then provides an immediate correction with visible proof of the change."