Consuelo Design Lab at St. Gerard High School

Greetings! My name is Roman Sanchez and I am the Science Teacher for St. Gerard Catholic High School.

 

I am writing to you today to introduce an exciting new project we've been working on on-campus this year and ask for your support.

 

As the school has reopened for the 2021-22 school year, many of the faculty and staff have been hard at work revitalizing our curriculum and academic offerings to build ourselves into a competitive college preparatory school in San Antonio, Texas. I came to St. Gerard from a PhD program in Sustainable Design and Environmental Research and I have been working to use that background to plan and launch a new design research laboratory housed at St. Gerard's.

 

This laboratory, tentatively named Consuelo Design Lab, hopes to conduct STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) research and develop designs that promote sustainability, are inspired by nature, and better our human communities. Over their 4 years at St. Gerard's, students will get experience conducting scientific research, learning how to design products and services for sustainability, and even writing a scientific paper for publication. In this way, we hope to go above and beyond the classic Biology, Chemistry, and Physics curriculums to use science and design to improve our community and our world.

 

Your support of this Lab and will plant the seeds of a legacy of excellence and innovation at St. Gerard's. 

 

We need to raise money for our first projects (see below). We are in the process of seeking community and corporate sponsors to fund us long term but we are asking if each donor could donate at least $30 (or more!) to help launch our projects. That would go a long way to getting us up and running!

 

Projects:

 

Project #1: St. Gerard Gardens

We seek to expand our school garden in order to study how plants grow, to beautify the campus grounds, and to provide food to help feed the surrounding community. We will be building garden boxes, a small greenhouse, and a fermentation shelf. We hope to be able to sell our produce and food products long term to bring funds to the school and to improve community access to fresh, organic produce.

 

 

Project #2: Game-Based Learning

We have begun developing a video game that uses an interesting sci-fi narrative to teach basic science concepts in an engaging way. Currently in the design phase of production, we hope to sell our game to other schools interested in finding new ways to inspire students to learn science and pursue science careers.

 

 

 

I am very excited to launch the Lab and believe it will allow our students to show how brilliant and innovative they are, for decades to come!

 

Thank you in advance for your support! Please reach out if you have any questions!