oak park ed. foundation: celebrating 25 years

NOVEMBER 5, 2014OAK PARK EDUCATION FOUNDATION

celebratingyearsPublished in partnership with Wednesday Journal

1989-2014

2 Wednesday, November 5, 2014 ■ Oak Park Education Foundation

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Oak Park Education Foundation, the school law firm of Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn LLP

extends its congratulations to the Foundation for bringing twenty-five years of innovative, curriculum-enriching programs

to the students of Oak Park Elementary School District No. 97.

We have been fortunate to share in the Foundation’s stories, diverse voices, and rich history since 2007. We salute the many volunteers who have contributed thousands of hours of service to the Foundation and the students it serves, and

we proudly stand with you as you continue your journey for the enrichment, engagement, and education of the students in the District!

Oak Park Education Foundation ■ Wednesday, November 5, 2014 3

b y D E B Q U A N T O C K M c C A R E YNearly 25 years ago, Dr. David Kupperman,

then a physicist with Argonne National Labs, built and blew off his first rounds of bot-tle rockets, surrounded by a classroom of giddy fourth graders learning firsthand about Newton’s Law of Physics with each pop.

That year Kupperman became a visit-ing scientist with the Oak Park Education Foundation’s (OPEF) Science Alliance (for-merly Global Village) program, the first of OPEF’s five in-school programs that leverage the volunteerism of professionals in science, art, architecture and engineering.

In his role as visiting scientist, Kupperman has had the opportunity to mentor many fourth-grade classrooms, particularly at Whittier school. In collaboration with a class-room teacher, he usually spends an hour or so on site, semi-regularly, interactively doing simple kitchen science experiments.

His aim is to make science – and the idea of him being a scientist – real. It’s his way of

helping instill in kids the basis of good sci-ence, which is inquiry, he says.

“The general idea is that a lot of us sci-entists want to help create a positive image for science. If we can plant the seed in these kids, it will get them interested in sci-ence long term,” says Kupperman. He then enthusiastically rattles off the other simple experiments that excite kids, including the can crusher experiment, which dramatically demonstrates the ins and outs of air pressure.

Over at Longfellow School, OPEF Science Alliance volunteer Dr. Sally Laurent-Muehleisen, Ph.D, is looking up at the moon with a classroom of kids. She is hoping that simple act will inspire the youngsters to pay attention to the moonrise and become a night sky gazer like any good astronomer.

“My classroom visits always coincide with them learning about median and mode. We plot out the median of the moon’s elevation on two different days, measuring the distance it moves, and sketching the face of it, sparking conversa-tion and learning,” says the adjunct professor of physics at IIT – Chicago. “Looking up at the night sky just really takes us back to our roots of being. Thousands and thousands of years ago, people had to understand that when a certain constellation was in the sky, then it was time to plant grain; when a different constella-tion was in the sky, it was time to start harvest-ing, because soon frost was going to come.”

Our community in the classroom

Photos by Oak Park Education Foundation

(Above) Dr. Kupperman at Whittier School performing a science demonstration as part of the Science Alliance program(Left) Dr. Sally Laurent-Muehleisen helping a Longfellow student with the astrolabe that she made as part of a Science Alliance project. Students were measuring and recording the angle of the moon

See COMMUNITY on Page 4

INTRODUCTION

Science. Art. Robotics. Architecture. LEGO Engineering. Thanks to the talent and generos-

ity of our community, the Oak Park Education Foundation has been delivering free, award-winning, hands-on enrichment programs to students in District 97 classrooms for 25 years. What inspires our work?

Connecting kids to community experts opens their eyes to inter-ests and abilities they never knew they had.

Lives are transformed when kids experience the magic of interac-tive, real-world projects, experi-ence “aha” moments and see new possibilities for their future.

By restlessly pursuing new ideas, we prepare kids for whatever the future may bring.

Thank you to the many mem-bers of our community who are helping us cultivate the next generation of passionate, life-long learners!

The Oak Park Education Foundation is a privately-funded, non-profit organization serving the students and teachers of District 97. Over the last 25 years, OPEF has raised more than $2 million in non-tax revenues for our pro-grams, and has leveraged over 50,000 hours in volun-teer time.

Deb Abrahamson

Executive Director

On the cover:Longfellow students “making comets” as part of a Science Alliance project



What art can startIntroduced in 1998, Art Start partners

local professional artists with kindergarten through eighth grade students, reaching more than 13,000 District 97 children so far. Two of those artists/writers are Guillermo Delgado and Sallie Wolf, who say they are committed to connecting to and enriching the curricu-

lum via the language of art. Last year, in the wake of the Boston

Marathon bombing, community artist Delgado helped students understand and dis-cuss the tragedy by using Mexican folk art to do the talking without words.

“We decided that we would pay homage to those runners who had been injured and died at the event by creating tin orna-ments, in the style of Milagros [Mexican religious folk charms], and the tin ornaments we made were feet with running shoes on them,” says Delgado. In an effort to increase the art’s impact, he asked local retailer The Competitive Foot to showcase the ornaments in their window along with a sign about the

project, thereby creating a shared community experience with children’s work.

As one of Art Start’s first visiting artists, Wolf says she spent time in a second-grade classroom enriching the kids’ study by help-ing them draw birds.

“It was pretty darn cool to take 24 kids out-doors with markers and clipboards to draw birds,” she recalls. “When we got out there, the birds all flew away, but there were migra-tory birds coming through, and one little girl drew a beautiful picture of a bird flying. She captured the act of it very well.”

Architecture Adventure volunteer Ken Floody, a structural engineer, says when he gives his time in a classroom, he always

receives something in return. The experi-ence has become a way to cultivate future engineers and architects.

“As a kid, when I found a hammer and nail and pounded my first boards together, that is when I knew I wanted to build things,” Floody says. “I am looking to find students who have that kind of interest level and help them to play that out, maybe into a further interest in engineering and architecture, or something in the design process. I think it is very rewarding to see that spark, or moment of understanding in these children’s eyes. And, frankly, some of them are so talented in the projects they cre-ate. I am impressed that students at that age are even thinking about things like this.”

(From left to right) Example of milagro ornament created under Guillermo Delgado’s (second from left) tutelage. Oak Park author and artist Sallie Wolf visits Ms. Creticos’ 2nd graders at Longfellow School for a nature-inspired Art Start project


COMMUNITYContinued from page 3


“What the robotics club gave me while I was a member was more than fun. I learned to work with others, effectively divide labor, ineffectively divide labor, and work towards a dead-line. And then meet it hanging by the seat of my pants. It taught me to have confidence in the things I knew....

I’ve learned how to explain things to effectively get your point across, how to see people’s problems, and that sarcasm isn’t always the best policy..”Jeremy Bloyd-PeshkinExpert in training

Experts in trainingOPEF programs leave a lasting impact on the participating students. In fact, in the

VEX program particularly, many students come back to serve as mentors for their younger peers, becoming experts in training.

“Mentoring at VEX is unlike anything else I have or prob-ably will ever do....When you can see the look on the kids’ faces when they wow themselves with what they themselves built — that’s my favorite thing about being a mentor.... It’s an incredible, unparal-leled experience and program.”Sam GinnExpert in training


Working on a robot during a VEX Robotics Workshop for Girls

Mrs. Louthan’s 2nd graders are performing cultural dances in an Art Start project led by dance instructor and choreographer Margot McGrawToppen

Beye student drumming in an Art Start partnership led by African Drummer Atiba Jali

A Longfellow 3rd grader showing off his creation in a Geared Up session

Students from Lincoln in a Science Alliance session, dissecting earthworms with veterinary scientist Ana Cottington

DELIVERING 25 YEARS OF HANDS-ON LEARNING FOR OAK PARK STUDENTS


A student in the Digital Photography BASE Camp taking photos at the Oak Park Conservatory with Paul Goyette

Gretchen Junker engaging youngsters at Beye in a Geared Up project

A Whittier 3rd grader building a machine in a Geared Up session

A girl experimenting with her creation in “Gadget Day” OPEF’s single day camp held on MLK Day in January

Artist Jill Kramer Goldstein working with a student

Irving Kindergarteners showing off the skyscrapers they created as part of an Architecture Adventure project

Boys building during a LEGO Landmarks project. Students study famous buildings and replicate them using LEGO’s


b y D E B Q U A N T O C K M C C A R E YAs Paul Whalen, 23, drives down Cuyler

Avenue in Oak Park past Beye Elementary School and sees the iconic baby bird sculp-ture permanently perched at the entryway of his alma mater, some of the former second grader’s old memories return.

“Undoubtedly, my strongest memory is sur-rounding this sculpture with everyone reach-ing and grabbing to make their mark and impact on it. It was a round object, and it didn’t look like a bird until the finer things were done,” Whalen laughs, adding that “as a second grader it did give me that perception of real art that I could not have gotten from many other things.”

Sixteen years ago, Margot McMahon was among the first group of Art Start visiting sculptors, painters, dancers, musicians and sto-rytellers to collaborate with teachers in District 97 classrooms for four to six weeks at a time.

In the Spring of 2000, Whalen was one of the 24 eager minds and hands in teacher Mary Jo Hoogstra’s class, following the direc-tions of professional sculptor and Art Start visiting artist, Oak Parker McMahon, who attended Yale University to study sculpture and teach at the graduate level. She mentored the young students as they molded the artful “Hope” sculpture. It was part of the Oak Park Education Foundation’s Art Start enrichment program for kindergarten through the second grade classrooms in District 97. The project was a collective effort that started with a wire skeleton, and as the group added clay, became “the spirit of Beye School as it entered a new Millennium,” Hoogstra told Wednesday Journal in 2000.

Helping ideas take flight“Hope” was born out of a lively brainstorm-

ing session among the second graders where many ideas were generated.

“As a professional artist, I had to say to the kids ‘how do we put this all together?’” says McMahon. “It’s an owl, it’s a cardinal, it’s what’s ahead. In this case the baby bird is reaching for the worm, which is what educa-tion is. And putting it at the front door, it’s say-ing to the students, come in here and reach for your worm,” says McMahon, who was teach-ing classes at the Art Institute of Chicago at the time. “So, I taught the second graders, age appropriately, exactly what I was teaching the college students. I made it a little more hands on, a little more with found objects that you understand; sphere, cone and cube.”

Carrie Kalina, Paul Whalen’s mom and Art Start parent volunteer, recalls of the project, “I was so impressed with how involved the kids were. They just wanted to see how other artists had done it, in order to get a sense of what they wanted to do.” She adds, “I think being involved in these Art Start programs broadened both of my sons’ ability to under-stand the process of being an artist. And as a volunteer, it was always just so much fun.”

Sculpting hope, peace and wonder at Beye School


Artist Margot McMahon and former Art Start participant Paul Whalen reminisce about creating the sculpture ‘Hope’ when Paul was a 2nd grader at Beye


More Art Starts at BeyeAbout three years later, McMahon teamed

with another second-grade Art Start class-room at Beye, this time leading the creation of “Peace,” a bird sculpture that hangs in the lunchroom.

“The second graders got box loads of vio-lent toys. I brought in a welded bird in flight that had a screen on it, and the kids brought their toys in and we placed them and wound them onto the screen. So we have taken the violent toys from the students and strung it up in a symbol of peace,” says McMahon.

“Wonder,” a whimsical mosaic sculpture that is permanently installed on the school’s lawn, came next. It was connected to a cur-ricular unit relating to Dr. Seuss.

“Because it is created with the shapes of animals, and everyone had a different defi-nition, we called this sculpture ‘Wonder,’” McMahon says. “I have heard [it called a] dinosaur, gazelle, dolphin…it’s definitely definable as a living creature and yet you don’t know exactly what it is. Is it a sea animal or is it a land animal? We put it in

concrete to make it permanent. Three years later the same class in the fifth grade said they wanted to mosaic it.”

Reflecting on OPEF’s 25-year history, Beye School Principal Jonathan Ellwanger, says, “Asking someone who is passionate and skilled to share that passion and skills with kids so they can become co-creators, that’s the best part of what we do in education. Margot involved them in the brainstorming and the hands-on creation, giving them a window into what it really means to be an artist.”

Whalen, now a working jazz pianist, says that it was in the second grade when art started to be real for him.

“Margot brought in the base, or start of the sculpture, and then she taught us that this is how we construct it. She then said go at it, and literally two dozen kids put their hands on this thing, and were brushing it,” the 2009 Oak Park River Forest High School grad recalls. “You can still see that image in the art, because the surface is not smooth. It has a real human quality about it, and you can tell that 24 kids were putting their hands all over it, making that sculpture their own.”


‘Wonder,’ a sculpture at Beye Elementary school

February 28, 2015 Saturday, 10am–Noon [free]All children ages 5-12 / Brooks Middle School, S Kenilworth Ave, Oak ParkSponsored by the Oak Park Education Foundation’s Art Start, Geared Up, Science Alliance, VEX Robotics and Architecture Adventure programs.

Summer 2015 B A S E Camp registration will also be open!

Get the kids out of the house and enjoy some hands-on fun!

J A N UA RY 19, 20158 am-3 pmA Monday off from school to build stuff, build friendships and build connections. C O S T: $ 7 5 * [ New this year! Extended care available 3-6pm, +$25 ]

Open to all children in grades K–8, from any school. Location: Brooks Middle School, 325 S. Kenilworth, Oak Park

* A limited number of scholarships are available for children currently participating in the District 97 free- or reduced-lunch program.

Learn more at opef.org/basecamp


b y D E B Q U A N T O C K M c C A R E YBefore kids carried iPhones in their pockets

and used District 97 loaner iPads at home and school, the Oak Park Education Foundation’s Technology in Motion (Tech Bus) program rolled in.

On the crest of the tech-in-schools move-ment, the Tech Bus was an old, refurbished school bus with a state-of-the-art editing suite that became a mobile learning station for elementary-age kids at 10 schools.

But by 2000, as personal technology blast-ed into the school and home markets, the Tech Bus went the way of the dinosaur, making room for new Oak Park Education Foundation (OPEF) program innovations.

To learn more about two of these innova-tive programs, Wednesday Journal caught up with Tim Walsh, the STEM/Design teach-er at Percy Julian Middle School and the Head Coach of Julian’s OPEF VEX Robotics Club, and Jenny Roen, OPEF’s resourceful Build A Summer Education (B.A.S.E.) Camp Coordinator.

How did you become involved with OPEF’s VEX Robotics?

Walsh: When Mark Pickus initially called me to see if I wanted to sponsor the club, I told him that I didn’t know anything about robots and was a Bio major in college. Bob Parks, who I had been paired with for the previous four years as an OPEF Global Village [now Science Alliance] scientist, came to my class-room, and when I mentioned the idea to him, he said that we could do it together and that

he would help me. So without Global Village putting experts in my room, I never would have had the time, or training, to delve into the robotics world. But the experts came and slow-ly and surely I developed a new skill set, one that never would have happened without OPEF.

How does VEX Robotics work?Walsh: Our middle school students use the

VEX Robotics equipment to design, build and program robots to compete against other schools at local and regional competitions. Last year, two of our teams established them-selves as top dogs at the state tournament: Team “Serious Black” won the Middle School Excellence award, which is the highest honor awarded at the competition. Team “Lost in

Pink” was a member of the alliance that went on to win the entire tournament. In addition, the staff members of the program from both schools also won accolades, earning an Award of Merit from the Illinois State Board of Education Those Who Excel.

What has been innovative about the program?

Walsh: VEX is a huge collection of people working together to make it happen, which is another thing the Ed Foundation brings to this. Currently we have 12 teams at each school, Brooks and Julian -- we have one of the biggest robotics programs in the nation. We also have 14 or 15 high school mentors who come back, and they are really, really

helpful, and we also have professional engi-neers who come in and work with the kids.

What is the link between VEX Robotics and STEM classes at Julian?

Walsh: Superintendent Al Roberts was at our Battle of the Bots competition, and I said, ‘Hey, this is too good. We have to make this a class.’ And, he said, ‘OK, come in give me a presentation and sell me on the idea.’ It was a huge shift and big idea at the middle schools, and now it’s a five-person depart-ment. We call it the Design Department, using a national Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) curriculum called ‘Project Lead the Way.’

What is the next big thing?Walsh: That’s a funny question because I’m

hoping the next big thing will be small, like circuit-board small. I would like to see the OPEF VEX Robotics program grow beyond a kit-based program and into the realm of a makerspace. How awesome would it be if our young engineers could make their own ideas come to life by drawing up CAD designs, 3D print them, hand solder the circuits and then write a code to control it all? This sort of club could complement the new Design program at the middle schools and give students an opportunity to enhance their classroom expe-riences. We are still in the planning phase of this one, but fingers crossed that we will be able to figure it out.

How did B.A.S.E. Camp emerge?Roen: B.A.S.E.

Camp came out of the 25 year history of the Oak Park Education Foundation doing free programs during the school year. The idea was for the sum-mer programming to provide funding for the free programming that happens dur-ing the school year, while at the same time experimenting with innovative new learn-ing concepts for K-8 students.

How did BASE Camp get started?Roen: Five years ago we began by offer-

ing VEX Robotics, Geared Up -- which is engineering with LEGOs -- and Architecture Adventure. We had 130 kids that first year. In future summers, we added an Art Start aspect with art, photography, dance and theater pro-grams, and some Science Alliance-type camps like dissection. So in the beginning, and still today, BASE Camp draws from OPEF’s school-year programs, and experiments with new topics we haven’t yet tried during the school year. And this past summer? We reached over 900 kids, and awarded more than $12,000 worth of camp scholarships to District 97 families on the free and reduced lunch program!

Innovation leads the w ay

Photo provided by Oak Park Education Foundation

Tom O’Loughlin with OPEF’s “Tech Bus” in 2000

TIM WALSH

Photos provided by Oak Park Education Foundation

(Left) Tim Walsh teaching students how to build a robot. (Right) Walsh looks on as the coach of the robotics team at VEX Robotics Battle

JENNY ROEN


What has been innovative?Roen: Last year, we introduced Waterbotics,

where we worked with Triton College who trained us and loaned us their Waterbotics kits. It involved a big plastic swimming pool where kids built robots and programmed them using computers to make the robot dive and move various ways. Another innovative new camp was Coding, which uses Scratch, MIT’s publicly-available programming language. The kids learned how to create their own games or whatever they wanted to do in Coding camp.

What is the next big thing for B.A.S.E. camp?

Roen: OPEF views BASE Camp as its inno-vation incubator, the place where we seek out new ideas and try them on a relatively small scale. For example, in our upcoming day-off camp in January, we are designing a class where kids go to Triton for a design and build project, finishing the day with a field trip to a company using 3D printing technology to cre-ate medical devices. And next summer -- we›re planning a sailing camp. How cool is that?

Student tests out the seaworthiness of his robot during the waterbotics session of BASE Camp, 2014

Photo provided by Oak Park Education

Foundation

“I’ve personally been opened up to many different opportunities because of my role in VEX. I was nominated for a science award, and I had the opportunity to help at OPRF High School. We are currently trying to bring VEX to the high school, and we hope next year we will have a team, too.”Victoria JeronExpert in training

We support the Oak Park Education Foundation.

830 North BoulevardOak Park, IL 60301

708-445-8400Fax 708-445-1788

www.ariainc.com


bistro. cheese shop. wine bar

fine wine . craft beer . premium spirits

gourmet grocery . retail gift baskets . party platters . gift certificates brunch . lunch . dinner

marion street market

100 s. marion street . oak park, il . 60302 708.725.7200

We are Proud to Support the Oak Park Education Foundation’s

programs in District 97 Schools

oak park ed. foundation: celebrating 25 years

Documents

school programs

classroom of kids

longfellow school

whittier school

thousands of years

david kupperman

year kupperman

simple experiments