Creativity Lab

One of the first sights you see after crossing the threshold into the heart of campus is often students tinkering in Mark Day's maker space, which we call the Creativity Lab.

While our media, technology, and innovation program is integrated into classrooms across the campus, it is most visible in the lab, where students construct prototypes out of cardboard and masking tape, build and test solar cars, program VEX robots, carve wooden spoons, and more. Students work both individually and collaboratively in the lab on class assignments and on projects they have dreamed up on their own. You never know what you might find when you walk through the Creativity Lab.

The Creativity Lab space is purpose-built to be an agile learning environment that can adapt to different circumstances and learning needs. There are whiteboards, digital displays and durable work tables on wheels, plus giant sliding doors that instantly transform the lab into an indoor-outdoor space. Loud and messy work takes place in the workshop. Large-scale projects spill out into the maker’s court. It is not uncommon to find sketches lining the walls of the corner we call the “think tank.” The space is large enough and offers enough variety that many different activities can take place in the Creativity Lab at the same time.

What is most extraordinary about the Creativity Lab is the program that occupies it. From K-8, students learn skills in building, design & tinkering, creative coding, and digital fabrication. Students practice the metacognitive skills of curiosity, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and a growth mindset. We want to send students out into the world with the skills and dispositions they need to solve novel problems, design something new, and make things!

Watch the video below to see our Creativity Lab in action!

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