Discoveries Abound

by Paul Bass | May 19, 2015 5:17 pm

Two budding housing designers were hard at work on Orchard Street and Legion Avenue.

“She’s doing the outside,” Tatianna Torres (at right in photo) said of her partner, Leslie Redfearn. “I’m doing the inside.”

Tatianna and Redfearn, third-graders at K‑4 Strong 21st Century Communications Magnet and Lab School, were learning not just about design, but about using computers, in their “discovery lab.”

A bunch of visiting grown-ups observed them and their classmates. The occasion: A celebration of the first year that New Haven has operated these labs as a “hands-on” way for kids to learn science.

The school system built the lab with part of a broader three-year $12 million federal grant to turn four elementary schools — Strong, Celentano, Quinnipiac, and Elm City Montessori — into “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and math) math magnets. (Click here to read a full story about that.) The Connecticut Science Center helped design the discovery labs for each of the four schools.

The school system is committed to keeping these rooms operating beyond the life of the grant, said the school system’s point person for the project, Michele Bonanno (pictured). She and other officials showed off the Strong discovery room Tuesday to celebrate not just that the $12 million grant for the four schools, but also a separate grant through which the Science Center conducts ongoing teacher training.

Third-grade teacher Cheryl Luzzi has been bringing her class to the discovery lab once a week this year. She can expose students to more ways of learning about science there.

“It’s really great for the kids,” Luzzi said as she monitored Tattiana’s and Refearn’s work. “It gets them excited about what they’re learning.” That’s especially true about special-education students who thrive on the hands-on learning, she said.