2024 Faculty Innovation Award Winners

By Madison Perkins, Marketing & Communications Associate

Our Faculty Innovation Grants are funded by the Kirwan Smith Family and the Faculty Compensation and Teaching Excellence Fund and are awarded to faculty members based upon the ability to create a proposal for a teaching experience that transcends the normal school curriculum. These grants offer $6,000 for classroom materials and $6,000 stipends to compensate for planning time for curriculum development. “The grant proposals were very strong this year, and we wish to thank all of the faculty members who submitted such excellent ideas,” said Director of Development Elizabeth Smith P ’17. “We were very lucky that the sponsors were impressed enough to encourage the panel to choose three winning proposals.”

Upper School

Making Augmented Reality a Brimmer Reality

Kathryn Lee P ’32, ’34, Director of Innovation and Design, MS/US Arts Teacher

This Innovation Grant will fund the purchase of two Apple Vision Pro headsets to be used primarily in Architectural CAD Modeling and Graphic Art. This equipment will complement the current curriculum while dramatically enhancing the student experience.

In describing how the Architecture CAD Modeling course will benefit from the Apple Vision Pro headsets, Lee explains, “This course currently delves deep into 3D modeling using Onshape, a web-based CAD platform. Onshape can export various file types, which, through a series of actions, can be converted to a .usdz file, the standard AR file type used by Apple mobile devices and the Vision Pro. Using AirDrop to transfer a file to the Vision Pro, students can experience their model in full scale, right in front of their eyes, with a full 360° view.”

The course becomes more immersive through the student’s use of these headsets. “They can walk around and experience their architectural design as if it were real. Without the Vision Pro, students can experience the same AR view through their phone or iPad, but due to scale, they cannot see the whole model at full size. The phone screen is not large enough to accommodate it,” says Lee. This enhanced experience helps students understand spatial relationships and scale more effectively, as if they were physically present in their own creations.

“The graphic art curriculum is historically rooted in the Adobe Creative Suite. However, this past year we began to explore the immense capabilities of Blender, a free and opensource 3D creation suite,” explains Lee. Blender supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline— modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Objects rendered in Blender can also be exported as .usdz files and are easily viewed in Vision Pro. This year, students in Lee’s class each created a 3D model of food items in Blender, which were displayed to the community as an augmented reality snack bar! For this exhibit, the snack bar was only visible through an iPad. “With a Vision Pro, experiencing projects like this would be even more immersive for the artists and the audience,” says Lee. “Moving forward, this class will continue to explore Blender as a method of creating AR objects and environments. Blender also complements both Onshape and Adobe, allowing our students to navigate the three platforms seamlessly and providing even more possibilities.”

Middle School

Enhancing Team and Community Building Materials in the Middle School

Andrew Beal, Director of Middle School Student Life and Learning Center, Middle School Math Teacher

Effective communication and collaboration have long been cornerstones of a Brimmer and May education. Although the omnipresence of devices has shrunk the world we live in, it has simultaneously widened the gaps between individuals and altered how we communicate, collaborate, and coexist. Moreover, there are lingering social challenges stemming from the pandemic years. To address these evolving needs, we must intensify our focus on SocialEmotional Learning (SEL) and developing teamwork skills. “The feeling one gets when walking the halls of our School and witnessing the joyful, respectful, collaborative community we have created is a testament to the hallmarks of a Brimmer education,” says Beal. “Now, more than ever, we can do better, and we need to do better for the sake of our students and for all humankind.

“Presently, the time invested in developing interpersonal skills is limited, and yet, expectations for group work, collaboration, effective communication, respect, and empathy are high. This is true across the curriculum, whether the students are collaborating on humanities projects, science labs, or creative arts activities and performances.” Addressing these gaps by integrating more focused interpersonal activities will enhance overall performance, ensuring that students are better equipped to excel in collaborative settings. Purchasing inhouse resources will provide multiple benefits to the School. First, the funds used for camp and employing the services of outside vendors can be reallocated to enhance the curriculum in a multitude of other ways. Second, having in-house materials means we can access them throughout the year and can react immediately when our community needs intervention.

Beal describes how the materials purchased would be implemented at the Middle School level. “In Middle School, additional opportunities exist during assembly and advisory blocks and in growth education,” he says.

These materials can be used proactively and reactively instead of the one-and-done model used in the past. This grant will have an immediate and lasting impact on our students.” As Director of Student Life, Beal will ensure the materials will be used by every student in the Middle School multiple times a year. Moreover, Middle School Senate members will be trained as peer leaders and facilitators. Once purchased, Beal will incorporate these materials into his professional goals and ensure they are used annually to continue strengthening the Brimmer community.

Lower School

Inspiring Future Climate Change Leaders

Ina Patel, Lower School Director of Teaching & Learning

Brian Binkowski, Grade 5 Teacher

The Lower School’s commitment to understanding and mitigating the impacts of climate change is irrefutable. Patel and Binkowski emphasize, “As educators, it is our paramount responsibility to inform the future decision-makers and leaders about the challenges facing our planet and how they can start devising solutions to slow down climate change. With the help of this grant, we will purchase materials that enable more authentic, hands-on, and relevant science explorations for students.”

For the study of simple machines, Grade 5 will continue learning about climate action and its effects, specifically focusing on ocean pollution, life on land, and sustainable consumption and production. Students will then engage in guided activities centered around simple machines. The final project will be to design a prototype of a machine that provides a solution for one of the climate topics studied.

During the Grade 5 astronomy unit, while students are learning about the phases of the moon and the life cycles of stars, they will conduct an in-depth study of Mars. Students will learn how food can be grown on Mars and understand the constraints of living without oxygen and water. The purchase of an aquaponics system and a vertical farming system (via artificial lights) will further aid students in learning about these advanced growing techniques.

The final unit of the year will focus on renewable energy. Students will explore solar energy, hydroelectric energy, geothermal energy, and wind power. After analyzing these renewable energy sources, students will create a home or building using the Glowforge and explore the benefits and drawbacks of these energy sources. Building on their prior knowledge of series and parallel circuits from Grade 4, students will wire a light bulb that runs to an alternative energy source and learn how the energy for these sources can be harvested and used.

“By updating these current science units in Grade 5, we are educating our students to be responsible global stewards who can make informed decisions about the products they consume,” say Patel and Binkowski. “These learning experiences provide students with hands-on opportunities to create solutions for current global problems.” ■