Students have been designing, making, experimenting, and exploring at Meadowbrook since our founding in 1923. Our latest iteration is EurekaLab, a K–8 STEAM-based curriculum created in collaboration with the MIT Edgerton Center.
Today’s students will someday hold jobs that haven’t yet been invented. That’s why our STEAM-based curriculum (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) focuses on much more than simply helping children master technology. EurekaLab is a multidisciplinary approach to learning that equips young people to solve problems for our rapidly changing world. Students create tangible solutions as they think with their hands as well as their minds.
A fifth grader studying NASA printed 3D rockets, developed a visual timeline, wrote a story, composed a song, and created a virtual TED Talk.
A fifth grader studying the Great Barrier Reef built coral for her visual diorama and used six other applications to produce a mini TED Talk, a poster, game show, picture book, and magazine.
Middle schoolers created an elective course called Art for the Greater Good in which they connected with youth around the world through projects such as drawing portraits for the Memory Project for Syrian refugees.
Whether in the classroom, Stansky Family Makerspace, or Danoff Family Innovation Center, students are presented with design challenges, diving into the subject matter, empathizing with the user, and using an iterative process to get to a final, working solution. Design thinking is fully integrated across the curriculum, undergirding student-driven, passion-oriented projects at all grade levels.
Junior kindergarten students designed their own cars and shared them at the annual Jr-K Car Show.
In the annual rain forest project, second graders each research an animal and then create accurate costumes for an assembly where they share what they’ve learned.
Seventh graders collaborated in teams to create models that illustrated physics concepts. From marble launchers to a Newton’s Cradle, they refined prototypes until they had projects that worked.
After reading Frankenstein, eighth graders designed, programmed, and built robots that personified their own “monster.”
The fifth grade’s recent Passion Projects used 30 different technology platforms and 20 different writing genres.
The middle school years are a time of dramatic physical and cognitive growth and hormonal changes. Young adolescents are also shifting their focus from their families to their peers.
Thus, an effective middle school program must do far more than prepare students for the academic challenges of high school.
The Meadowbrook School knows the importance of strong relationships in children's development. While these can be built at a distance, the bonds become that much more powerful when students and teachers are together every day.
