Our Wildwood, Summer 2018, Volume 43

For middle school science students, Emily envisions many curiosity cultivators. To start, she wants students to see Greater Los Angeles as an extension of their campus, making use of Wildwood’s central location to take learning into the city and beyond.

students need to have encounters that might help them understand why various species go extinct or how much garbage the average American produces. “We want our students to consider why it matters,” Emily says. Curiosity-driven learning is of course not limited to the sciences. In 8th grade, every Wildwood student conceives and presents an Into the Wild capstone project. This yearlong endeavor allows students to act on a personal enthusiasm or deepen an area of interest. “What if we embedded a social impact component to Into the Wild?” she wonders. “Each 8th grader could find and work with an upper school student who is part of one of Wildwood’s learning institutes.” Next year, Wildwood will add an Institute for Social Good and Community Leadership to join our existing Institute for STEM Research and Development (WISRD). Our institutes are dedicated to connecting students so that together they can effect change and leave positive marks on their community. Asking “why?” and social action go together at Wildwood. “Knowledge should lead to a call to action— which taps middle schoolers’ energies and ideas even more,” Emily says. Wildwood students can feed their curiosity and make a change in the world. W

“Our students should be responsible for even more thinking and doing,” she says. “And we need our teachers as guides.” She believes that having teachers who are content-area experts is essential, “but it’s not enough. We need teachers who can help create learning contexts in which kids can apply the key course content.” Emily cites the value added to the program by faculty who recently joined Wildwood’s middle school science team, Dr. Stephen Bayes and Na Xue, who both employ their extensive content-area knowledge in the creation of curiosity-driven projects, like the eco-columns and cardboard boat regatta. She wants to extend to middle school the curiosity that’s integral to Wildwood’s elementary program fostered through an emphasis on Systems Thinking, which teaches kids to consider holistically how various natural and human-made systems are interrelated. “Why?” is an essential question of all systems thinkers.

LOOKING AHEAD

For middle school science students, Emily envisions many curiosity cultivators. To start, she wants students to see Greater Los Angeles as an

extension of their campus, making use of Wildwood’s central location to take learning into the city and beyond. “Wildwood is just a short bus or train ride away from so many other ‘classrooms’—the Santa Monica Mountains, Santa Monica Bay, and the Ballona Wetlands, along with world-class museums and universities,” Emily says. “Our students can spend a full or half day away from school and come back bursting with ideas, learnings, and new questions.” Wildwood’s emphasis on social action and global citizenship is foundational. Every student is encouraged to make a positive difference in the world. But even more,

1 “Curiosity is critical to academic performance.” ScienceDaily. N.d. Accessed May 10, 2018. https://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/2011/10/111027150211.htm. 2 Yuhas, Daisy. “Curiosity Prepares the Brain for Better Learning.” Scientific American. October 2, 2014. Accessed May 10, 2018. https:// www.scientificamerican.com/article/curiosity-prepares-the-brain-for- better-learning/.

3 Berger, Warren. A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.

27

OWW SUMMER 2018