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The Exploratorium
The
word Exploratorium cannot be found in the Webster's dictionary, but
will have great meaning to the Pine-Richland community as the new upper
elementary school opens in 2008. The Exploratorium is seen as the town square of the school. The upper elementary building will be
capable of housing 1200+ students.
With this number of students it will be very easy for classes,
teachers, and students to become disjointed and not connected with each
other as a grade level or school.
The Exploratorium is seen as an area where entire grade levels
(400+ students) can come together for a common purpose so unity can
be established and maintained. The school community appreciates the intimacy
of a classroom-learning environment, but also sees an importance in
continuity and similarity of instruction across the grade level. We will be very fortunate to be able to
bring all teachers of grades 4, 5, and 6 together in this new school,
but efforts will need to be focused on communicating, planning, and
executing instruction. The
Exploratorium is more than an assembly room or auditorium.
It is an area of the school that will be able to be transformed
to fit the needs of many different types of events and activities.
Unlike a traditional auditorium, the seats in the Exploratorium
will be retractable and the floor of the room will be flat. When extended the seating area will provide an intimate setting
for musical performances (band, chorus, orchestra), assembly programs
that enrich instruction, and other opportunities for large group presentations. With
the seats retracted a large activity area is created where multiple
classes can come together for project-based learning and hands-on activities.
In this setting, the room can be transformed into a gallery for
displays of student work. Many
wonderful activities are in place in each of the four buildings that
will be coming together when the upper elementary school opens.
In order to maintain, standardize, and implement these learning
activities in the new learning setting, a facility large enough to handle
the events needs to be on-site. The Exploratorium would become the home
of Science Olympiad activities, wax museums, health fairs, arts shows,
book fairs, partnership events with outside agencies, and more. All of these events occur somewhere in
the district at this point. Without
a large space to involve the increased sized grade levels in the new
building, there is danger they may disappear because of inadequate space
in which to hold them. The Exploratorium will be designed to bring new opportunities into the learning experience. Virtual field trips, online presentations and chats with various experts from around the world will be able to be facilitated in this space. The capability to project webinars and other satellite broadcasts will bring the lives of people around the globe into the Pine-Richland community – truly shrinking our world.
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