With the help of the Culver City Education Foundation (CCEF), El Rincon has it's very own Arts & innovation Lab!
The Arts & Innovation lab is a hands-on problem solving place. Like professional engineers, students will use their knowledge, experience and imagination to solve problems, testing and reworking their solutions until they are satisfied. Away from textbooks and worksheets, they will learn practical lessons in math, physics, computer science, engineering and even business.
During the first trimester, students learn about foundational art skills. During weekly 45 minute classes, basic visual art and engineering design skills will be introduced or reviewed.
Trimester two is where students learn about expanding tools and challenges. During class, digital tools will be introduced and explored; fundamental skills will be combined or elaborated. Students will engage with grade-specific technologies, like the simple robots resembling bees that will introduce TK and Kindergarten students to coding. The students will use pushbuttons on the bots to create programs that make the bees move in specific ways. Later they‘ll move to a digital programming interface.
Trimester three is time for creativity unleashed. Students will combine experiences and skills into integrated projects.
Students will use what they’ve learned over the course of the year to create projects and solve problems. They may be asked to identify a problem and then think about how they might build something that would address that problem. Older children might even align with a local non-profit. The results will be solutions of their own invention for problems they want to address.
As the students work together they won’t just learn about math, physics and computer programming. They’ll learn how to discuss problems and solutions, how to work together as a team, how to learn from one another, and how to appreciate and make use of their diverse ideas, skills and experiences. And they will be learning all of this amazing stuff while having a blast!
