Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

They were looking around at each other and seeing how they were different from one another.

And they realized that the reasons we are the way we are is something to do with where we come from and how we've adapted ourselves

to fit into the world and to flourish in the spaces in which our ancestors came from.

And that became the entree into conversations about race, about identity, but also about individual variability, about the ways in which development and experience shape who you are.

Yeah, they became very deeply interested, some of them, in really the ways that science could help them explore the world.

I remember one girl who went for the first time, we were kind of near the beach, but she had never been to the coast before, and her parents took her on a weekend excursion to the beach, and she came back eagerly on Monday morning with a coffee can with

snails in it and was trying to be like, look, they're alive.

Like these things were at the beach.

So I think they really took some of the concepts and tried to use that approach to explore their world.

And that was incredibly powerful.

I mean, kids were running into my classroom at seven o'clock in the morning with a can of snails and some seawater and saying like, look, look, they're alive, right?

I think the engagement really showed itself in the fact that kids were running off on their own, designing their own things and trying to use the resources I was providing them

to do the stuff they were imagining.

We filled the course with projects.

I gave kids a huge amount of leeway in what kinds of activities they would do.

Like I set out a goal, all right, we're studying astronomy now.

Here's what it looks like.

But then different kids had to figure out for themselves what did they want to do in that space.

And I really kind of tried to throw the ball back in their court and make them in charge of deciding what they want to do in this space.

How are they going to design this project?