xq.png

codman.png

institute-for-progress.png

partner_0004_SPS-2.png

partner_0003_Barr_Foundation-1.png

partner_0001_Google.png

applewild.png

harvard-extension.png

partner_0002_BPS.png

partner_0003_Barr_Foundation.png

partner_0004_SPS-1.png

boston-public-schools.png

high-meadows.png

High Meadows Graduate School of Teaching & Learning

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education logo

partner_0000_XQ.png

tremont-school.png

nervous-system.png

aane.png

tufts.png

google.png

day-one.png

sprout & co's homepage, reading "Our mission is to make science a cultural activity"

sprout-homepage.png

Making science a cultural activity as [sprout & co](/work/sprout/archive)

Powderhouse Studios' old homepage, reading "Come invent the future of learning with us"

powderhouse-homepage.png

Trying to start an in-district high school as [Powderhouse Studios](/work/innovation-school/archive)

Partnered with <a href="https://xqsuperschool.org/">XQ Institute</a> to develop engaging, rigorous, and interdisciplinary projects tackling core concepts in Algebra 1. Designed a collection of youth- and teacher-facing project and facilitation resources focused on modeling, piloted with teachers and students, and developed a cross-project framework rethinking algebra through modeling.

Graph comparing average heart rate when lying versus telling the truth

xq1.png

Creating project-based development kits for high school mathematics via modeling

Modeling Algebra

Accredited an onboarding program for Powderhouse Studios' school design by developing and launching a state-approved teacher licensure program focused on the new <a href="https://www.doe.mass.edu/stem/dlcs/">Digital Literacy and Computer Science</a> (DLCS) standards in partnership with <a href="https://hmgradschool.org/">High Meadows Graduate School</a>. Designed the program to double as a complement to traditional licensure tracks, bringing modern fluencies like computation, narrative, and design to more typical academic subjects.

The High Meadow Graduate School fo Teaching and Learning website reading, "Take teaching in a new direction."

kindling1.png

Creating a novel teacher licensure program in digital literacy and computer science, from scratch

Redesigning Educator Licensure

In collaboration with the <a href="https://www.aane.org/">Asperger/Autism Network</a>, developed and ran a program for adults and youth with spectrum disorder diagnoses who wanted to tackle anxiety in their daily life through design projects.

A sketch of a head with a pie chart where the brain goes, broken down into things like: thirst, hunger, social, fixation, to do, anxiety/anger

d4a1.jpg

Design and prototyping as a path to dealing with anxiety, tailored for people with autism

Design for Anxiety

Worked with [Applewild](https://applewild.org) to launch a new, project-based program with a place-based emphasis on Fitchburg, MA, to inaugurate its high school programming focused on youth with special education needs.

A group of young people sit with a teacher in the grass in front of Applewild's main building, laughing

prospect1.png

Advising on a place- and project-based freshman gap year at <a href='https://www.applewild.org/'>Applewild</a>, a <a href='https://maaps.org/'>Chapter 766 school</a>

Prospect Studio

Worked with families, community members, teachers and district staff to establish an experimental high school inspired by the best creative workplaces, studios, and labs, where teenagers could work on projects they care about. Started in 2013 and rejected in 2019 after conflict between the Superintendent and a funder.

Covered outdoor walkways at the Powder House Community Campus

powderhouse1.png

<a href="https://hechingerreport.org/anatomy-of-a-failure-how-an-xq-super-school-flopped/">Trying</a> to start an in-district "<a href='https://www.doe.mass.edu/redesign/innovation/'>Innovation School</a>" centering projects exploring computation, narrative, and design

[Almost] a New District School 

New schools and programs face a problem: Generally, whiter and wealthier families are the ones who hear about and pursue these opportunities. Active outreach can mitigate this, but there will always be selection bias. During the design of our Innovation School, we worked with a variety of civil rights and racial justice organizations to develop a novel, weighted lottery system to equitably enroll our student body, correcting for this bias without running afoul of the law.

A slide from the Powderhouse Studios design process providing an overview of an enrollment system which ensured the school's population would match the demographics of Somerville Public Schools

algorithm1.png

Legal and technical solutions to discriminate by race, gender, and class to prevent school-level segregation

Equitable Enrollment Algorithms

A series of programs run in partnership with Harvard Extension School introducing computation as an expressive medium. Participants prototyped, exhibited, and critiqued each other's work, which included interactive, computational stories, art, and games, including both web applications and physical prototypes.

The homepage to the student project Doodle Date

dgmd1.png

Creative explorations in screen-based and physical computing

Creative Computing

Developed a Mac application and associated workflows supporting storytelling around and evaluation of the complex, textured work that results from truly personal projects. The same way Amazon X-Ray provides a detailed look at every frame of a movie, Atlas aimed to demonstrate how technology and social rituals can work together to create detailed, structured documentation of learning.

A whiteboard shows the results of a design exercise walking through a project timeline with markers and post-it notes

atlas3.png

Rendering messy, project-based work legible to traditional standards through software

Atlas

Designed and ran programs combining computation, narrative, and design. Programs took different forms—from vacation camps to school day programs in special education classrooms—but centered similar questions: Why are stories so central to human experience and community? How do we tell stories well, and in different media? How can data enrich our storytelling? 

A demo of digital interaction in which small, multicolored bubbles follow the mouse pointer

digistory1.gif

Programs exploring how software and hardware can support new forms of storytelling

Digital Storytelling

Over the years we have taken a variety of approaches with participants of all ages in programs exploring Abelson and diSessa's Turtle Geometry. Through simulations, computational art, and robotics, participants explore new ways of thinking and working with geometry and topology through programming.

A whiteboard filled with sketches of circles and spheres with mathematical equations all around

turtle2.png

Exploring differential geometry and topology through LOGO

Turtle Geometry

Standards often play an outsized role in conversations about what is and isn't possible in school. Curious to understand the process up close, Powderhouse was part of the commission drafting MA's standards for Digital Literacy and Computer Science.

A screenshot of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website explaining the Digital Literacy and Computer Science standards

dlcs1.png

Developing Massachusetts' standards for <a href='https://www.doe.mass.edu/stem/dlcs/'>Digital Literacy and Computer Science</a>

DLCS Standards

Established a fabrication laboratory within Somerville High School's vocational wing in partnership with the City of Somerville and Massachusetts' [Urban Agenda program](https://web.archive.org/web/20171010175512/http://www.mass.gov:80/hed/community/funding/urban-agenda-grant-program.html). Designed, outfitted, setup, and ran inaugural community programming in the space, supported community outreach and hiring for sustainability.

Two people work together at the same computer in the Fabville space

fab3.png

Designing, securing funding for, and launching a community <a href='https://fabfoundation.org/getting-started/'>fabrication lab</a> in <a href='https://somerville.k12.ma.us/schools/somerville-high-school'>Somerville High School</a>

Fabville

Full-time, year-long pilots of project-based programs across 7th and 8th grade core academic subjects. Worked directly with youth, developed project and program designs, and ran professional development while documenting work and hosting regular school-wide and family-oriented events to share young people's efforts.

The program listing from the Healey STEAM website, including Machines that Move, Invisible Forces, Two Voices, and more.

healey1.png

Piloting our proposed Innovation School design all-day, year-round with 7th and 8th grades at <a href='https://somerville.k12.ma.us/schools/arthur-d-healey-school-pk-8'>the Healey</a>

Healey STEAM

Inspired by the spaghetti dinners of <a href="http://www.greatsmallworks.org/">Great Small Works</a>, this dinner theater series brought people together around food, music, and performance about a monthly theme. Blurring the line between art and academia, sprout spaghetti dinners asked academics to approach their lectures as performance and puppeteers to present their theater as pedagogy.

A crowd gathers inside sprout in a garage, sitting and standing, eating and talking

spagh1.png

A monthly food, music, and performance series exploring cross-disciplinary themes

Spaghetti Dinners

Inspired by works like Braitenberg’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262521121"><i>Vehicles</i></a> and Schrödinger’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1107604664"><i>What is Life?</i></a>, Signs of Life asks participants to explore what it means for something to be “alive” by prototyping projects which are alive, in one way or another. Participants made projects ranging from robots responding to feedback to instrumented gardens to writing adaptations of works like Frankenstein to explore these questions from their own perspectives.

The cover of the book Vehicles, Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg

sol1.png

Interdisciplinary explorations of what it means for something to be "alive" through software, hardware, and art

Signs of Life

Instrument design is as much art as it is craft and science. This workshop offered a chance to get your hands dirty with how sound works. With help from a professional flute maker from the Haynes Flute Company and a mechanical engineer, participants built flutes and riffed on their form, exploring how flutes’ design control acoustics while working to understand the nature of timbre and harmonics.

A detail shot of a concert flute beside a pair of calipers

flutes1.png

Exploring how sound works by building and experimenting with flutes from scratch

Flutes & Waves

Explored the playful mathematics behind board games, origami, geometric puzzles, and more. Hosted regularly at the MIT Museum, this event series targeted the "I'm not a math person" narrative by bringing together multiple generations, families, and neighborhoods to explore mathematics as mathematicians practice it: playfully, through games, puzzles, and creative projects

sprout board member Beth O'Sullivan works with a participant at Bring Your Grandma to Math Day

grandma1.png

Workshops bringing people of all ages together to play with mathematics, for fun

Bring Your Grandma to Math

In partnership with <a href="https://nervo.us/">Nervous System</a>, developed a program introducing novices to programming and simulation through applications to natural systems. Participants used these models to generate geometric forms which were fabricated into physical objects through various rapid prototyping and manufacturing technologies.

A close-up of fingers holding a small gem object with veinating patterns inside

nature1.png

Simulating natural phenomena to design, prototype, and fabricate art

Simulation & Nature in Design

Through an all-ages community program, more than four dozen people of all skill levels came together to design and build a twelve-foot tall, twenty-foot wide walking sculpture inspired by the work of Dutch artist <a href="https://www.strandbeest.com/">Theo Jansen</a>. The work culminated in a mile long march from Davis to Harvard Square as part of the 2010 HONK! Parade.

A shot from below of the crankshaft and gear that powered the whole machine

Our Work

Selected Work