BUILDING THE CURIOSITY LAB @Breakwater

A SPACE: A physical space that features innovation, technology and entrepreneurship learning activities, tools and experiences for youth. More than a maker space, more than a computer lab, the Curiosity Lab will encourage learners of all ages to wonder, explore, deconstruct and invent.

A MINDSET: More than the space, the Curiosity Lab is philosophy that fosters and promotes a curiosity mindset. Our learners are encouraged to be inquisitors, researchers, builders, tinkerers, scientists, artists, engineers, re-imaginers and myth busters, not just in the Lab, but outside of school and across their lifetimes.

The flagship Curiosity Lab will be at Breakwater, in the heart of the school, supporting an evolved and amplified tinkering program for our entire toddler - 8th grade student body. It will provide rich streams of experiences, questioning and novelty, fostering “conversations with phenomena” via art, tinkering, making, and other opportunities to interact with the Lab’s library of tools, materials, technologies and interactive components.

Here learners are encouraged to ask how does it work, why does it work that way and how could it work. The ultimate goals are to not only spark curiosity, but scaffold it so that learners are guided into deeper exploration and mastery, and to help learners not only develop key readiness skills such as STEM, grit, resilience and self-confidence, but also a broader curiosity mindset that prepares them to be active contributors, creators and entrepreneurs.

The current schedule is to build out the basic structure of the Curiosity Lab at Breakwater and launch before the start of the 2017/2018 school year! Curriculum development, planning and design are well underway.

Visit curiosity.life for more info and pics from last summer's Pop Up Lab in downtown Portland.