Urban Connections
Grants
We are pleased to announce the
following Urban Connection Grants for academic year 2017-2018. BB&N will
support eight grants next year, four new connections and four continuing
programs. The new grant connections will be established during summer 2017 and
implemented throughout the school year. Each grant will connect BB&N
students to groups and organizations throughout Cambridge, Boston and the
Greater Boston Area.
Please explore this blog for in depth information about the current programs established this past year and to learn about the new grant programming throughout next school year.
New Urban Connections Grants:
Faith Traditions in our Community
Sasha Bergmann, MS 3D Art Teacher
Beth Brooks, MS Librarian
Stefanie Haug, MS Counselor
This
program will create an exploratory, interactive workshop with the goal of
introducing Middle School students to a variety of faith and religious
traditions and spiritual practices, such as key tenets, holidays, and impact on
daily life. This grant aims to bring religious and/or spiritual leaders in
the Boston area, potentially from the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization,
to BB&N to discuss their own religious traditions,
and how they intersect with other faiths. There
will be interactive components to this program, including sharing of ceremonies
and personal experiences and creating displays to share with the larger Middle
School community. Students will have a safe, collaborative space in which to
learn about religious and faith traditions and spiritual practices similar to
and different from their own, to explore key tenets and ceremonies, and to
explore the interconnectedness of many world religions. We hope and expect that
students will come away with a deeper understanding of religious and/or
spiritual traditions and how they may inform people’s lives. This program
will collaborate with the Upper School grant focused on religious diversity in
Greater Boston.
Religious Diversity in Greater Boston
Gustavo
Carrera, US History & Social Sciences Department Head and Teacher
One of the school’s
core values is: “We value a diverse and inclusive community.” As a way to honor
this value, the Upper School history department is committed to the teaching
history from the perspective of minority groups. In addition, the department
has made an effort to teach students about a variety of religious traditions. In
order to deepen that understanding, this program will establish a relationship
with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and its member congregations to
bring students to places of worship and to bring interfaith panels to BB&N.
By visiting places of worship, students will experience the architectural
expression of a variety of religions, religious practices and rituals, and the similarities
between these religions. This partnership with GBIO will bring interfaith or
multi-denominational panels to school to discuss and present on specific
topics, offering students the opportunity to pose questions based on their
classroom learning. The expectation of this program is that students will gain
empathy for a variety of religions by learning about the similarities and
differences of various denominations. They will gain very specific content
knowledge on ritual and worship. In addition, this program will collaborate
with the Middle School grant focused on faith traditions in our community.
Wampanoag Presence and Impact
Simone Esteves, MS History
Teacher
The goal of this
grant program is to bring indigenous peoples out of the past and into the
present for the Middle School students. This program will connect students to
the Wampanoag tribe, including current people, culture and historical
sites. A group of students will visit
Martha’s Vineyard for the day, a trip comprised of speakers and tours focusing
primarily on the Wampanoag experience, perspective and history, but will also
include the history and experiences of African American people on the island.
The intended outcome of this program is to emphasize for students that the
indigenous experience and influence, particularly in New England, has not only
a long history but is still very present. The focus of this grant on the
Wampanoag tribe lends itself seamlessly to the 8th grade curriculum.
The 7th graders will also be able to make connections to their
curriculum while studying indigenous peoples of Latin America. This program
will enable students to make a variety of personal connections to the
curriculum and bring history back to life.
Young Children as Advocates
Dana Bentley, Beginner Teacher
Betty Chan, Beginner Teacher
Our advocacy
project will seek to frame the Beginners as advocates from their earliest
experiences in the BB&N community, and each experience in advocacy is grown
out of the children’s interests and passions about the world. Through our
advocacy project, children will develop a common space for discussion and
questioning about community, collectively work to shift the focus from self to
others, and then work collaboratively to address an issue that feels important
to the class as a whole. These early
months of discussion, research, and collaboration will lead to sustaining a
social action project, framing the children as active members of the community
with the ability to make change around issues of concern for them. Throughout
this project, we will work with children to make sense of injustice, and to see
themselves as able to have an impact. The students themselves will choose and
develop the urban connection that is in line with their interests and focus of
their advocacy project. The outcome of
this work is manifold, in that it teaches the children that they are able to
make change and have the responsibility to make change. When they take
thoughtful, collaborative steps toward justice as young children, it shapes
their identities as learners, their expectations of themselves, and their
understandings of what learning can do. This process defines care and kindness,
integral elements in learning. In this first year at BB&N, we hope that
advocacy becomes part of their identities as young learners who are intelligent,
thoughtful, and capable of changing the world.
Continuing Urban Connections Grants:
Art for
Social Change
Sasha
Bergmann, MS 3D Art Teacher
Art for
Social Change will continue for a second year as an extension of the Middle
School Guerrilla Artist group, connecting students to social activism through
public art throughout Cambridge. This grant focuses on learning about and
creating artwork for social change, while tackling all considerations and
challenges presented when preparing art for the elements and securing a display
location. This program exposes students to local activism through art and
expands the audience whom the students reach with their artwork and message. Cambridge has a history of activism
and public artworks that the Art for Social Change group aims to honor and celebrate.
Through this grant, Middle School students will experience the entire
process of creating public art with a message.
Captivating
Historical Haunts
Beverly Malone, Director of
Teacher Training Institute
This
program connects our Lower School students to the rich history located right
here in Cambridge. This club educates our Lower School students about the
significance of the homes and the people who lived in them in the Buckingham
Street area of Cambridge. In its first year, 5th and 6th
grade students engaged in learning about five local resources that surround the
school, all on the National Register of Historic Places. Students identified
five historical figures who lived in the Buckingham Street area, created a
diary of the five historical places they visited, and shared their
findings with peers. This grant will
continue for a second year supporting the program’s goal to provide context,
meaning and connection for our students to BB&N’s unique Cambridge
location.
Global Ecology Education: Creating a
Path to Sustainability & Leadership
Karina Baum, Director of Global Education and US Science Teacher
This grant
program established a BB&N partnership with the Global Ecology Education
Initiative (GEEI) at Boston University. The GEEI is led by highly-regarded
biologist and science education professor Dr. Douglas Zook. GEEI also partners
with the Arnold Arboretum of Jamaica Plain, which is operated by Harvard
University. During this academic year, Upper School students had fieldwork
experiences at the Arboretum led by Dr. Zook. They engaged in directed-learning
activities, allowing them to cultivate relationships with and knowledge about
natural habitats, as well as a first-hand understanding of the importance of
preserving biodiversity. In
addition, Dr. Zook worked with the students at BB&N to support and follow
up on their fieldwork experiences. This grant will continue into its second
year, supporting BB&N students as they develop global leadership skills in
ecological sustainability.
Sixth
Grade Pen Pal and Mural Project
Leila Huff, Grade 6 Homeroom and
Language Arts Teacher
Stevie Olson, Grade 6 Homeroom and
Social Studies Teacher
Berhane Zerom, Grade 6 Homeroom
and Math Teacher
This
program continues to connect the BB&N 6th grade students with 6th
grade students at Al-Noor Academy (ANA,) an Islamic middle and high school.
Students from both schools worked together to create a mural expressing the question
“What Makes a Healthy Community” during the first year and “How Should Global Citizen
Strive to Communicate” this past year. They began
to develop their new relationships as pen pals and wrote back and forth to introduce
themselves, learning about each other’s interests, values, and communities.
Working together this past year, students from both schools explored the theme
of communication and created a mural. Continuing on for a third year, this
program includes interdisciplinary learning and opportunities for the
communities to gather and foster mutual respect, while creating a lasting mural
to represent their connection and collaboration.
"I feel like receiving
the Urban Grant demonstrates the school's commitment to support young
people at BB&N as they grow toward the aspiration of being global citizens.
In considering how to be a part of the vast and complicated world, local and
personal connections are foundational to understanding what community is and
how to build positive relationships. The hope is that when these values are
fostered throughout the student experience, young people will leave this
community with the ability and desire to impact the world with positive
change."
- Stevie Olson
Urban Connections Grant Recipient
Grade 6 Homeroom and Social Studies Teacher
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