Last Friday saw the roll-out of Discovery Afternoon version 2.0. Our 2013 inaugural run of Discovery Afternoon drew on the expertise and passion that exists within our own faculty. It was an opportunity for students and teachers to get to know each other outside of the classroom and to strengthen our middle school community of learners.Discovery Afternoon provided an opportunity for experiential learning guided by teachers through activities that extended beyond the daily academic routine. Activities offered gave teachers an opportunity to share a hobby, passion, or favorite city location with a small group of students. Activities were designed to help students grow intellectually and emotionally as they pursued new interests or explored passions shared with their teachers. It was a great success.

When we started the planning process for this year’sDiscovery Afternoon, we were initially focused on sticking to the previous year’s format with a little fine-tuning. At the same time, the faculty has also been engaged in substantive conversations about redesign of the middle school schedule. One area of focus in this work has centered on building time into the schedule for students to explore areas of personal interest. These are often interests and activities that students engage with deeply outside of school; we think that it is crucial that these interests find their way into the school day as a platform for learning. So the planning forDiscovery Afternoon and our schedule redesign efforts began to converge as we considered the idea of having student interests, passions and areas of curiosity become the drivers for this year’s experiential activities. This would involve some letting go on the part of teachers and a taking-on of substantial responsibility by our students. There were equal measures of concern on both sides about how this might all come together.

On the student side, we felt that this was a perfect task for our student reps to take the lead role; so Dean of Student Activities Margaret Andrews worked with the reps to come up with an implementation plan. The entire student community was polled to identify possible areas of inquiry and ideas for activity groups. This yielded a huge list of possible ideas. The reps reviewed submissions and removed items that were impractical given time and resource constraints and combined similar ideas. At this point, there were still too many possibilities. The reps polled the community again and asked students who were interested in leading a group to indicate which submission was of interest. Sixteen groups with committed student leaders emerged from this process. Faculty were then paired with each of the groups to help facilitate the planning process. Student leaders and faculty then met to formalize the group’s plan for the afternoon. For most groups, this involved some research, phone calls, identification of resources and materials and the creation of a description of the activity to be used in activity sign-up process. Here is the list of activities that were developed for the day:

• Poetry in the City: Are you an observer of people?  Do you love thinking about stories in everyday life and the power of language?  Do you think in poetry?  Come walk with us by the river as we discover and create poetry in the city.  We will enjoy a picnic lunch by the water and explore different styles and techniques.  One of our activities will include eating a sweet and writing about the sensory experience. You will leave with a new notebook full of ideas, inspiration, and poems. If it rains, we will do the above activities around the school.
• Hunt Central Park: Do you love The Amazing Race? If you do, this is the group to join! We will be competing in teams and going on an exciting scavenger hunt- how well do you really know Central Park? Your CP knowledge may lead your team to victory. You will need a lunch, comfortable walking shoes, and weather-appropriate clothing. In the event of rain, don’t worry! The scavenger hunt will be relocated to the LREI neighborhood.
• An Afternoon of Art and TV including the Original Batman: Have you always wanted to watch that one TV show that your parents always talk about? Or see a classical painter’s amazing life’s work all in one afternoon? Well, here’s your chance! Please bring your lunch and we will eat outside if the weather is nice. After that, we will head over to the Paley Center for Media, where you can watch any TV show ever. And they will have a special Batman screening just for us!  Then we will visit MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and catch the super popular Gauguin exhibit.
• Pasta Making: In this workshop you will learn the ins and outs of pasta making. Learn how to make the dough from scratch, use a pasta machine, make both fettuccine and gnocchi and make a basic tomato sauce. We will take a trip to Raffetto’s, the famous pasta shop on Houston Street, where we will learn all about pasta making from the pros. Bring your appetite to this workshop, because after we make pasta, we’re gonna eat it!
• LREI Cupcake Wars: Get your beaters and wisks ready to face off in an intense LREI cupcake competition! We will start by eating lunch together outside if weather allows (please bring a bagged lunch) and planning for the competition. Then we’ll go to a local supermarket to buy ingredients. Back at school, the contest begins. Teams will compete to see who can create the best tasting and most original cupcakes! There will be a special prize for the winners of the competition. Some cooking/baking experience is preferred.
• Code Masters: We will show you how to use HTML/CSS to make stuff for the web, Scratch to create games, and JavaScript to interact with the user.
• MineCraft: We will build an interactive environment in Minecraft using Tinkercad to design buildings. Then we will hold games in that world.
• Brooklyn Bridge Bike Ride: Ride your bike over the Brooklyn Bridge to the park under it. Eat lunch in the park and get an ice cream. Ride back to school.
• Photograph and Film NYC: Students will take photos or film as we go walkabouts in NYC. If you have your own camera, great. If not we will  borrow some for the day. We can return to school and put our images together into a group portfolio. Perhaps you’ll print a few for keeps!
• Kayaking on the Hudson: The Hudson River has played an important role in the development of New York City. For most of us, this impressive river is something that we take for granted as we move about the city. On Discovery Afternoon, we’ll get a little closer to the river as we spend the afternoon kayaking upstream and downstream. We’ll learn basic kayaking techniques and then we’ll take to the river in the spirit of discovery. Note: You must be able to swim even though you will wear a life jacket. You may get a little wet so wear a bathing suit (under your clothing) or shorts and be sure to bring a hat and sun block. Rain plan is watching kayaking videos along with an art project.
• Whovian Discovery Day: Doctor Who is the longest running show on television and an icon of pop culture, as well as a landmark in the genre of science fiction. It has fans around the world who both love the stories and connect with the characters. This is an opportunity to learn about or explore further the world of Doctor Who as well as learn soldering and working with LEDs. In our 4 hours we will be; sodering together sonic screwdrivers (a universal remote-like device used on the show), watching an episode of Doctor Who and the special episode Day of the Doctor, all while eating TARDIS (the Doctor’s time machine) self-destruct buttons.
• Long Board 101: Come on a long-boarding adventure in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where we will learn to make and ride long-boards. We will return to school with our very own long-board deck that we will tech out at a long-board loft back in the city. We will also enjoy trying out a long-board in the park with friends! We will eat lunch in the park and have a really great time. Come with us because you know you look good on that long-board! In the unfortunate event of rain, we will still do everything except for going to the park and we will go for ice cream!
• Coney Island Scavenger Hunt: Come with us and you will experience a great adventure on Coney Island. We will be hosting a fun and exciting scavenger hunt including challenges like taking photos on rides, the beach and more! Our day will also include games at the carnival, thrill rides and a delicious picnic on the beach. You will be bringing either your own lunch or money for the famous Nathans hot dogs. So come join us on this amazing day of fun at Coney Island.
• Planeswalking for Beginners: Learn how to play the legendary trading card game Magic: The Gathering that holds the world record for, “Most played trading card game of all time.” Along the way we will go out for Chinese food, and take a trip to a comic book store. Join us to learn the basics of the game, participate in a mock tournament, and go home at the end of the day with a deck of your own!
• Surfin’ Safari: Join us for a day at the beach! We will be taking the train to Rockaway, Queens for a day filled with beach activities, a picnic lunch, and an opportunity to learn to surf. Weather not permitting, we will be traveling to an indoor gym for competitive, athletic activities.
• Use(d) T-Shirts for Fashion Forward Design: You will choose between many possible activities to turn t-shirts into up-to-date fashion statements or decorative accessories!  Bring t-shirts ready to be updated or recycled, a lunch and a willingness to explore today’s fashion.

I think that you’ll agree that this is an impressive list covering an exciting range of opportunities for discovery. As I communicated to you at the end of the day on Friday, it truly was a spectacular day as the plans for the above activities were set into motion by our student and teacher teams. Click on the image below to see more images from the day.

As always, our student leaders and student participants far exceeded our expectations. And faculty had a great time as well. We’re already thinking about Discovery Afternoon 3.0.

In keeping with the spirit of student driven work, please click on the image below to view the PSA created by one of our sixth grade classes in advisory that was selected as one of five finalists from over 200 submissions in the Department of Transportation’s challenge to students to create PSAs to increase awareness of the value of walking.