In a room designed specifically for town hall meetings, assemblies, and civic purpose, the entire Upper School student body and faculty gathered for the first-ever assembly held in the Briggs Center for Civic Engagement (BCCE). This was an opportunity to gather together to experience the new space and to gain...
This Common Ground features two teachers who made excellent use of problem-based learning opportunities….one has been ongoing in the 3rd and 4th Grade Project Based Learning class, and the other was a spontaneous inspiration drawn from the previously mentioned project installation in the Gallery. But first, a description of the...
The interesting and compelling story about the Commons has received some recent media attention. Commons Coordinator, Seth O’Bryan, wrote an article about a hypothetical day in the life of the Commons, and how students and teachers will be learning side by side. This was published in the National Association for...
The members of the Institute for Creative Music (http://www.ifcmusic.org/Institute_for_Creative_Music.html) were on campus this week to work with the music faculty and their students. Our own Mike Kaupa is a member of this exciting and innovative group of professionals. The other members are Nick Finzer, Matthew Golumbisky, Chris Teal and Chris...
The last few weeks have focused on finishing up the interior of the Commons, but a few obvious additions can be seen on the roof. These solar panels will be responsible for heating the water of the building, hopefully eliminating the need for any traditional hot water heaters. The view...
As a new element to our Outdoor Education program this year, the Seventh Grade spent four days downstate near Poughkeepsie at Sprout Creek Farm. This farm is where faculty member Chris Hartman worked for several years after graduating from Vassar College. He was the farm supervisor, which included everything from...
In a fantastic fall finale, the Fourth Grade was given a design thinking challenge to create a device that could “chunk” pumpkins. Catapults and trebuchets can be found at local farm markets and other locations during the Halloween season for launching full size pumpkins. The challenge for the fourth graders...
Two recent images capture some new developments at The Commons. The first is a collaborative art project of a Harley Acorn, created by using 6″x6″ squares of blue, green and brown paper collages which were then assembled into acorn form, if you look at it from a distance. The project...
Touring around The Commons with the alumni this past weekend, it is clear that this building is handsome. The fine balance struck between sustainability and aesthetics has truly made this a unique version of an upstate New York barn. You can see from the photos that it rises nicely in...
We are indeed fortunate to have Chris Costanza, the designing architect of The Commons, available to interact with our students of all levels. He had a busy day today, starting off speaking with the Lower School Project-Based Learning class of 3rd and 4th graders about being an architect and his...
