Engineering a Foundation

In room 115 of the South Science building, semi-trailer trucks, built out of LEGOs, hang

from the ceiling like trophies. In another corner of the same spacious room is a plastic cylinder, standing at least seven feet tall, filled with murky water for students to drop robots into. More LEGOs spill from drawers. Videography gear — microphones, tripods, cameras — are hung on the walls. A green screen drops from the ceiling, photography umbrellas positioned around it. A line of computers sit along another wall. For a budding technology guru, it’s a haven.

This is Middle School technology teacher Dan Bell’s world of electronics — what he likes to call

the eLAB, named in honor of the late Dan Bartels — and it is home to, well, constructing your own home of discovery. It is a space of exploration where students can examine their own interests and wander down wherever that path leads them. What students receive at Collegiate School, in more ways than one, is a home, and, as technology continues to grow, more students are realizing that the program is a big component of that home, one they are eager to be a part of. This space is a place that allows them to engineer their own home and, potentially, their future.

“In a constantly evolving world, we want students to develop flexible thinking skills,” Bell says. “Technology is a means of interacting with the modern world, and having a strong literacy in technology is crucial to maintaining the interaction.” It’s for this reason students at Collegiate are introduced to technology practices as early as Junior Kindergartners, where they work with robots and other technologies to understand these sequencing practices. The Middle School presents a necessary continuation of that Lower School education. Simultaneously focused and free, Middle School students are given the agency to nourish their interests.

In the Middle School eLAB, students work on projects that get them thinking about creative problem solving. They have the opportunity to join the FIRST LEGO League, a mentor-based global robotics community that allows students to further explore their science, engineering, and technology skills. Modeled after FIRST Robotics, an engineering league in the Upper School, the LEGO League helps students apply the fundamentals of STEAM to exciting annual competitions. “Having a consistent program from the Lower School to the Upper School really allows students to develop and scaffold their skills over time,” Bell says. “So many of our former Middle School students that started out working with LEGOs, where they developed a solid foundation of skills, are now doing professional tech work in the Upper School. It comes much more naturally to them because, on a much smaller and more abstract scale, they have been working on this stuff since Middle School — maybe even Lower School.”

Since introducing FIRST LEGO League, Bell and his colleagues Rachael Rachau, technology integrator, and Ralph Rivera, robotics and engineering program leader, have expanded programmatic and extracurricular offerings to help meet student interest. In addition to FIRST LEGO League, students have the opportunity to build underwater ROVs and test them at the Collegiate School Aquatics Center. They also have the opportunity to make short films and video games in Bell’s classroom. The eLAB, in short, is a home of opportunity. It’s a space where students can develop technology literacy and the many forms that may take.

For Bell, figuring out a problem is the essential function of learning. In a world of perpetual evolution, where tech job growth is projected to increase from 6 million in 2025 to 7.1 million in 2034, knowing how to learn on the fly, coupled with a strong foundation of technology skills, is paramount. It’s why the Middle School technology program takes the same software programs leading professionals in the automotive, film, architecture, and gaming industries use and incorporate those technologies into their own projects. “Learning is so much more than curriculum or targeted skills or memorization,” Bell says. “It’s about individual self actualization. It’s about learning how to learn things and learning how to problem solve.” This range of projects give STEAM students the opportunity to invest in their own cu- riosities and authentically apply the tools they’ve developed in the classroom, and it’s this application that elevates a Collegiate education.