Students Design + Build

When the Philadelphia School District made major budget cuts to its public school funding, many suffered. However, at that time the Science Leadership Academy decided to open a new high school location in West Philadelphia. This decision allowed more Philadelphia students to have access to accelerated college readiness learning. While the school successfully transformed the school space, there wasn't enough funding to purchase new furniture in the first year. So, in the framework of "mini-courses", a design educator led groups of the school's 9th grade students through designing classroom furniture to meet the school's unique pedagogy needs. 
 
The students researched, brainstormed, performed numerous iterations of concepts, built and tested models and now it’s time to construct this final piece of furniture! Throughout the process, the students learned valuable design skills, like how to express themselves visually with sketching and model making, how to critically discuss each other’s design work, and how to design for their peers and teachers’ needs. This year long project brought design education to this school’s 9th grade students. To complete this project by building the final piece of furniture, the project needs funding to purchase plywood, furniture legs, hardware and other building materials.  Building this design will bring the project to completion, showing the students the power they have to change their environment through design! Help this school achieve this goal and go fund us!