Meet Matt Sterling, Lisa Collins, Kyle Asmus, & Stacey Lamb!

Mr. Matt Sterling

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as the did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."  -  Muhammad Ali

Previous School:
Morning Creek

Previous Assignment(s):
5th Grade

What is something you’ve always wanted to try?

Skydiving - just waiting for the Groupon!

Do you eat the stems of broccoli?

As long as they're roasted or covered in cheese.

Tell us about your superpowers.

Meeting kids at their level with their interests, Tinkering with Apple products, Sports, Anything competitive (just ask Tiffany), 90's trivia (especially Saved by the Bell)

What excites you the most about Design39Campus?

The students - the fact they are choosing to come to us!

What makes you laugh?

Nothing's better than the songs my daughter makes up.

What is one word that your friends would use to describe you?

Spontaneous.

What is most rewarding about your job; what makes it all worthwhile?

The connections with kids.

What line or shape do you identify with? Circle, square, triange, squiggle, ellipse
Ellipse, because it's not just a shape, it's a punctuation mark.
Anything but Comic Sans. Anything.

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Mrs. Lisa Collins

"Because nice matters."
"Fair is whatever it takes for you to be successful."

Previous School:
Willow Grove

Previous Assignment(s):

5th Grade

What is something you’ve always wanted to try?
Snowboarding or parasailing

Do you eat the stems of broccoli?
No!

Tell us about your superpowers.
I am a great team player, I am comfortable in front of a crowd.

What excites you the most about Design39Campus?
I am excited to do school differently and to allow students to be creative in their own passions.

Who let the dogs out?
The earliest one up!

What makes you laugh?
Personal stories about each other's trials and tribulations. 

What is most rewarding about your job; what makes it all worthwhile?
The kids who smile, who trust me with their thoughts and feelings and hopes each day.

What is your totem animal?
A cat

If you had a Magic School Bus, where would you take your students?
Around the world to the seven wonders of the world

Favorite font
Comic sans or anything with dots

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Mr. Kyle Asmus

Previous School:
Oak Valley Middle School

Previous Assignment(s):
Science, Math

What is something you’ve always wanted to try?
To play the Old Course at St. Andrews.

Do you eat the stems of broccoli?
It’s food, so yes.

Storms - Cool or Scary?
Scary - they have the power to hurt or harm animals, people, and their habitat or home.

What excites you the most about Design39Campus?
Having kids who love learning and love coming to school.

Who let the dogs out?
I think the Baha Men?

What makes you laugh?
My daughter’s laughs

What is one word that your friends would use to describe you?
Selfless

What is most rewarding about your job; what makes it all worthwhile?
The relationships!

Dream vacation spot
The roof of Apple Headquarters on January 30, 1969 or any other habitable planet besides Earth

What line or shape do you identify with? 
The triangle because they are found a lot in bridges and I like bridges.

Favorite font
Ubuntu because it's a silly word and it is "a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity."

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Mrs. Stacey Lamb

"It is better to light a candle, than to complain about the darkness."

Previous School:
Willow Grove Elementary School

Previous Assignment(s):4th Grade


What is something you’ve always wanted to try?
Experiencing zero gravity

Do you eat the stems of broccoli?
Absolutely.

Tell us about your superpowers.
Problem solving, puzzles, engineering

Storms - Cool or Scary?
Mostly cool, unless I'm stuck in it, then scary.

What excites you the most about Design39Campus?
All of the people, big and small

Who let the dogs out?
Definitely me.

What makes you laugh?
My puppy. Constantly.

What is one word that your friends would use to describe you?
Calm, intelligent

What is most rewarding about your job; what makes it all worthwhile?
Kids, kids, kids.

What is you totem animal?
An eagle

Dream vacation spot:
African Safari

If you had a Magic School Bus, where would you take your students?
The Galapagos Islands

What line or shape do you identify with? Circle, square, triange, squiggle, or ellipse?
Squiggle for sure

Meet Bret Fitzpatrick, Abby Robles, & Sonya Wrisley!

Mr. Bret Fitzpatrick, Teacher

"Ignorance is curable... With knowledge!"

Previous School:
Oak Valley Middle School

Previous Assignment(s):
6th & 7th Grade Science & Social Studies
Project Lead the Way (Design and Modeling, Automation and Robotics, Energy and the Environment)

What is something you’ve always wanted to try?  Driving a Formula 1, Indy, or NASCAR car.

Tell us about your superpowers.

I'm a builder. I like to solve problems. I'm a bringer-togetherer. Making connections. Listening. Almost any sport that involves frozen water. A doer, expediter. Passionate seller of what I believe is awesome.

Storms - Cool or Scary?

Super Cool

What excites you the most about Design39Campus?

Changing the world, one learner at a time...

What makes you laugh?

Tangential thinking. Double and triple entendres.

What is one word that your friends would use to describe you?

Loyal

What is most rewarding about your job; what makes it all worthwhile?

Kids who return to tell you that you made a difference in their lives.

What is your totem animal?

River Otter

Dream vacation spot:

A conversation with the Dalai Lama, in an over-the-water house on a tropical island.

Favorite font:

Verdana BOLD italicized - it looks fast

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Mrs. Abby Robles, Teacher

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi

Previous School:

Del Sur Elementary School

Previous Assignment(s):

2nd Grade

Tell us about your superpowers.

I make kids feel really confident in themselves. I'm also driven, flexible, and audacious (I have no problem looking like a fool in the name of learning or fun).

What is something you’ve always wanted to try?
Skydiving or knitting a scarf

Storms - Cool or Scary?
I live in San Diego....what are storms?

What excites you the most about Design39Campus?
The people!!!

Who let the dogs out?
They found a hole and snuck out on their own.

What makes you laugh?
Human awkwardness and animal videos

What is most rewarding about your job; what makes it all worthwhile?
Knowing that I mean a whole lot to a small number of small people makes me work REALLY hard. 

Dream vacation spot
A sharkless beach with warm clear water

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Mrs. Sonya Wrisley, Principal

"Do one thing every day that scares you." -Eleanor Roosevelt

Previous School:

Oak Valley Middle School

Tell us about your superpowers.

Working with people. Sports. Facilitation. Dreaming and creating.

Do you eat the stems of broccoli?

Yep

Favorite Board Game(s)

Balderdash

What excites you the most about Design39Campus? The people and the possibilities

Who let the dogs out?
My husband

What is one word that your friends would use to describe you?
Fun

What is most rewarding about your job; what makes it all worthwhile?

Working with all the people

What is your totem animal?
Owl

Dream vacation spot

Triple Creek Ranch, Montana

Favorite font

Arial. Clean and not fussy.

BakerNowicki Design Studio

One of the most exciting parts of this year has been our trips to innovative businesses and schools.  Yesterday, our team had the privilege to visit BakerNowicki Design Studio in Downtown San Diego.  

BakerNowicki is the architectural firm that designed Design39Campus.  They have also designed quite a few other schools in PUSD, most recently Del Norte High School, Willow Grove Elementary School, and Del Sur Elementary.  They are passionate about creating innovative learning spaces for students.  

Architectural partners John Baker and Richard Nowicki and their team spent the morning with our D39C team, showing us their design studio and giving us insight into their work in designing schools.  

Their newest project is the design for a new high school in Menifee for Perris Union High School District.  As part of the design symposium, they created scaled pieces of each type of space needed at the new high school.  The community was invited to help in the placement of the facilities and determining the best layout for the campus.  The D39C team took a try to see if we could find a way to creatively fit all the parts onto the site layout.  It was interesting to look at the ideas the community came up with and the reasons the fields and buildings were placed in each spot.

Another fascinating part of our visit was the chance to ask the BNds team some of our questions about Design39Campus.  We also walked away with carpet samples, colored glass samples, and samples of the laminates.  We are in the process of deciding on furniture, so this visit could not have come at a better time.

This truly is a beautiful campus and we could not be working with a better design team than BakerNowicki.  Together, we envision a new way to meet the needs of our students in a place that fosters collaboration and innovation.

Thank you, BakerNowicki team, for taking the time to share your design studio with us!



Kelly Eveleth
Teacher/Designer
@Design39Campus

What has the Design39Campus team been up to this month?

1.  Wondering what our start time will be.

2.  Developing deep papercuts.

3.  Answering phone calls!

4.  Writing and responding to emails, lots and lots of emails!

5.  Highlight, sort, stack, repeat, highlight, sort, stack, repeat...

6.  Late nights in the DNHS Performing Arts Center.

7.  Being hard headed.

8.  Hiring amazing teachers and taking the LEAP!

Yes, it has been a busy month.  And... totally worth it!  It has been great talking with so many of you and hearing the excitement you have for Design39Campus.

Kelly Eveleth

Teacher

@Design39Campus

Tinker/Maker/Mindset

Over the winter break I found myself spending an awful lot of time in my workshop. I’m fortunate to have a tandem garage space that allows me to have sufficient tinkering space without having to pull the cars out onto the driveway, although I do when the project demands a larger spread. Though my preference is to work with wood, there are so many other projects and ideas that arise as a homeowner that I find myself engaged in a wide variety of problem-solving challenges. By no means am I an expert in all of these fields however, I view all of them as something I can figure out. If another human can do it, then so can I. This is the mindset of a maker and tinkerer. It’s also the mindset of scientists, and doctors, and engineers.

And good teachers.

Several years ago my wife and I decided that the Coleman tent trailer we had was more work to get ready before, and clean out after, a trip and than we liked. We were at a point where getting a small Class C RV made sense. We found a used one and have thoroughly enjoyed it, naming it iRV (pronounced “Irv”) However, the interior decor has suffered and, in the case of the blinds and valances, were literally crumbling due to UV damage. Winter break project. Now, neither my wife nor my daughter have any experience sewing. Meaning it was down to my sewing experience to make this happen.

As a kid I watched my grandmother sew amazing things. She had been a seamstress for the Shakespeare theatre in Stratford, Ontario and was quite talented, to put it mildly. As a teenager I asked her to help me modify some clothing and, as the great teacher she was, she had me sit down at the machine and go to work. Of course, very quickly she had the opportunity to show me how to rip out stitches and start over!

Later in life, during my first years of teaching at Balboa City School, I joined a few moms with our sewing machines to sew Renaissance costumes for our students to wear to the Renaissance Faire. That was a learning experience, to say the least.

Back to the iRV project. The first step in any project like this is to take things apart and see how they go together. The valances were made of wood that had been wrapped with material and stapled together, creating a challenge for reassembly. After removing all of the staples holding the plush blue material in place I decided that I would need an electric or air-powered stapler, and to rejoin the wood pieces I’d need a smaller size staple for my pneumatic staple gun. However, nothing looked too complex and, with the fabric carefully removed, I could use the pieces as patterns. The second step was cutting the new fabric pieces, using the patterns. Followed by stapling the fabric to the wooden pieces using the same order of operations the original fabricator had used. And the final step was to pneumatically staple the three pieces back together. One down, six to go.

Taking things apart to see how they work is at the heart of making and tinkering, it’s real-life, context-based, hands-on learning. Whether I ever re-do another RV’s valances again doesn’t really matter. What I learned was how it all goes together and, more importantly, that I CAN do it! The confidence that comes from overcoming challenges and successfully completing a project like this is critical to developing resiliency and stick-to-itiveness, and a growth mindset.

Next came the sewing of curtains. Again, it begins with disassembly. Using a seam ripper, I took apart one of the curtains to figure out what my material sizes will be and to learn the order for sewing the various seams. Cutting the black-out shade cloth and the fabric pieces, pinning, ironing, and then sewing the seams took about three times longer than I planned - of course. But in the end, it turned out pretty well. Then, I recruited my daughter (see photo) and put her to work learning the ins and outs of the sewing machine and thought back to when I was her age and it was my grandmother looking over my shoulder. Passing on the maker mindset.

I knew she could do it. And now she knows it, too!  These types of learning experiences are the basis of a good education. Learning by doing, not by sitting silently in rows as someone drones on and on.

By the way, the curtains and valances look great. Soon followed by my next project: installing a new stereo in my 4Runner. That’s fodder for another post.

Bret Fitzpatrick

Design39Campus

Project Lead the Way @ Santa Rosa Academy

Santa Rosa Academy is a kindergarten through 12th grade charter school in Menifee, California.  The school is in its ninth year, and its first year in a beautiful brand new facility.  It started as a small charter in a shopping center with only 5 teachers and has grown to a full campus with over 60 teachers. 

On Tuesday, our team had the chance to visit Santa Rosa Academy to find out more about their implimentation of Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a hands-on curriculum focusing on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education.  Several schools in Poway Unified School District currently offer PLTW as a middle and high school elective.  Santa Rosa Academy is piloting the K-5 Launch program in addition to its sixth through 12 grade PLTW program.  Design39Campus is interested in PLTW as an integrated part of all grades, K-8.

Project Lead the Way Overview:

"Project Lead The Way (PLTW) is the leading provider of rigorous and innovative STEM (science, technology, 

engineering and math) education curricular programs used in schools. As a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, 

PLTW exists to prepare students for the global economy through its world-class curriculum, high-quality 

professional development, and an engaged network of educators, students, universities, and professionals. 

PLTW’s comprehensive curriculum has been designed by PLTW teachers, university educators, engineering 

and biomedical professionals, and school administrators to promote critical thinking, creativity, innovation, 

and real-world problem solving skills in students. The hands-on, project-based program engages students on 

multiple levels, exposes them to areas of study that they typically do not pursue, and provides them with a 

foundation and proven path to college and career success."  (http://www.pltw.org)

Project Lead the Way video featuring Santa Rosa Academy:

Principal Laura Badillo toured us around campus to see the K-5 Launch program in action. 

• In a kindergarten class, students read the story Jack and the Beanstalk, and discussed the structure and function of the beanstalk and its parts. The next step will be for students to make a bean stalk using only 10 pipecleaners to create a freestanding structure that will support an egg.

• In a second grade class, students read a story about a boy who needed a way to keep popsicles frozen while we was at his soccer game.  They discussed the boy's problem and brainstormed other information they would need to find out in order to solve the problem.  Through the design process and exploring a variety of materials, they will be creating a way to keep the ice pops cold until after the game.  What a great way to learn the properties of matter and how energy is transferred?!

• In a fourth grade classroom, students were beginning their study of energy and collisions.  Students watched with excitement as their teacher tested her Lego car as it rolled down an incline carrying a raw egg (see the video here!).  Students will be designing and building their own cars with restraint systems using VEX kits. 

The biggest thing the D39C team noticed at Santa Rosa Academy?  The students were engaged and excited about learning!  The teachers asked great questions, fostered curiousity, allowed students to explore, and were brave enough to try something that is not typical in an elementary school.  A special thanks to Principal Badillo for spending her morning with our team!

Right on, Santa Rosa Academy!

Kelly Eveleth

Teacher & Designer

@Design39Campus