Flying Cloud Institute is Back in Public Schools
Flying Cloud Institute (FCI) educators, artists, scientists, and engineers are once again bringing multi-week residencies into Berkshire County public schools, offering student-led projects and showcases of learning for the community. Educators recently completed a residency at Lee Elementary School, are currently teaching at South Egremont School, will be at W.E.B. DuBois Middle School in March, and are planning to come to the Pittsfield Public Schools next school year.
“This is a sign of the resilience of the education community as we emerge from the pandemic crisis. We are so enthusiastic to be working with creative children who are eager for challenges and are excited about learning,” says Maria Rundle, Executive Director.
At the Lee Elementary School residency last month, FCI educators led fourth grade students in making observations to show that energy can be transferred through sound, light, heat, and electrical currents. Students explored energy transfers by observing convection currents, designing their own vehicles, and creating LED circuits. Data collection stations led to hands-on investigations and a deeper understanding of how speed relates to energy.
The culminating event of the residency was a showcase for their peers, where the ideas from science came to life. The fourth grade scientists and engineers hosted grades K-6 in their lab and led hands-on design challenges and experiments.
FCI educators are currently bringing weekly hands-on science investigations, design challenges, and performance art to the Kindergartners of the South Egremont School. Students are investigating the natural phenomena in their backyard to learn about the changing seasons and explore the mysteries of light, physics, material science, and biology. At the conclusion of the residency, students will collaborate with FCI artists to perform a play, inspired by their work, for teachers and caregivers.
The DuBois residency will introduce 7th grade students to the magnitude of geologic time through physical modeling. Youth will create original stop-motion animation movies of geologic phenomena. The goal is to connect students to their environment through a new sense of geologic time and scale, using the fun and collaborative nature of claymation to model their planet’s ever-changing surface in a creative way. Students will display their videos with classmates and parents as an online Film Fest.
The Lee, South Egremont and DuBois residencies were funded in part by STARS grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which works with schools and community organizations to expand access to arts education and creative learning through the humanities and sciences.