Brightworks Blog

Brightworks is a flurry of activity and we are thrilled to share peeks into the lives of the students, our school and the community.

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A big Thank You to our visiting friends and educational scholars from the Future Classroom Lab at University College Copenhagen! We have hosted them in the past and were thrilled to see them again on their second visit to San Francisco and Brightwork
We grew a couple of new community members during Community Arc! Please welcome Cinnamon & Monica! These two most adorable creatures currently reside in our youngest students' band spaces where they are being tended to by loving and considerate
Memory Arc is underway and our younger middle schoolers went exploring! More precisely they went to #FortPoint to see Black Gold: Stories Untold, a #For_Site Foundation Exhibition. Our students explored the powerful works of contemporary artists te
In Community Arc we build our own chairs! We often start the year with this provocation, as it provides a fun opportunity to shape our own learning environment while introducing shop work and practices! Our students build confidence in their creative
We start every day in community with a morning circle! While our youngest students are granted a slightly different format, all our students from 3rd grade up contribute to setting their intentions for the day! First they invite everyone in with an
We are so lucky to call the Presidio of San Francisco home! So when we went exploring during Community Arc, that meant taking in everything our park has to offer! We explored nature preserves and play equipment, military & pet cemeteries as well
A big Thank You! to everyone who came out to see us @ the Bay Area Private & Parochial High School Fair this weekend! We had a blast! For more info and to sign up for open houses this fall please visit our website (link in bio) or sign up via Ra
Students who feels safe, seen & valued learn better and use their creativity in the process! That's why we spend the first few weeks every school year on a mini Community Arc! Building friendships, establishing bands & rules of interaction,
brightworks Megan Leppla brightworks Megan Leppla

Iterate, iterate, iterate...

Each student made a mini zine to collect their feedback.The Amber Band has been hard at work on their expression projects. Last week our goal was to have a second iteration ready for feedback. Each project built off of its first iteration, incorporating feedback from experts, and utilizing more advanced tools and materials. Students sought out feedback from fresh eyes in the Brightworks community, asking questions like: What do you think the purpose of my project is? What did you learn from my project? What are you still wondering about my project?Elijah learned that he would need to make some structural readjustments to his ladder to make it safer. He was quick to take apart his second iteration. For iteration three he'll broaden the base, fix some joint gaps, and add more support on the sides. Declan was having some trouble getting the soldering metal to stick to his copper piston. He cleaned his copper well, helping the metal to stick, but now the edges were bumpy. To smooth out the joints he used a blowtorch and some welding tools. Norabelle, Khalia, and Ella got some feedback to clean up the surface of their machine by replacing the tape with hot glue. They've already started replacing the tape for iteration three, and continue to add more chain reactions to their Rube Goldberg Machine. Oscar did some user testing of his RFID tracker, and learned that the BWX LARPing community is eager to use it. Audrey got some feedback on the variables of her experiment, and learned that she wouldn't need to make an airlock, just an antechamber. Felix is working on incorporating more visuals into the third iteration of his infographic to show the many effects of walking meditation. Rhone's second iteration is looking ready for the final design, using large PVC pipes as the wheels for his drift trike.

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