This fall, the Grade 5s have been engaged in an exploration on accessibility, barriers, challenges, and disability. Students have learned about what life might be like to use a wheelchair and using Design Thinking Framework, they designed assistive technologies to make an aspect of York House more accessible. Rory Dougall from BCIT’s REDLab, a rehabilitation engineering design lab, came into work with the girls on their prototypes. The girls shared their prototypes and talked about the process during an expo held on Monday, December 11.
This project started months ago, when Grade 5 teachers, Melissa Kanavos and Erin Reindl, our STEAM Coordinator in the Junior School, Jennifer Sharpe, and Science Teacher, Lela Ling, began to develop a truly cross-curricular unit on accessibility. They designed the unit to incorporate curriculum from Science (simple machines), Language Arts (paragraph writing), and Social Studies (citizenship) as well as create an opportunity to deepen the understanding of our YHS value of empathy.
Read more on this Grade 5 STEAM project here.
