BPS Middle School Course Catalog 2025-2026 - Flipbook - Page 7
Engage and Thinkering Studio
Engage
The design and purpose of this course is to provide a collaborative space for students to inquire,
design, and create through inquiry-based learning. Students will explore questions, challenges,
topics, or technologies of interest, at their own pace, and in directions of their choosing with the
guidance of the teacher. Students will plan and reflect on their creations, processes, successes,
and difficulties through multimodal learning. The goal of this program is to prepare students for
global learning opportunities by engaging their interest and imagination in science, technology,
engineering, arts, and math. Students will develop their cognitive processes of analysis,
comparison, inference, evaluation, and synthesis applied to a range of academic domains and
problem-solving contexts.
Schools offered:
BCS: 7th and 8th grade (core course all students)
Berkshire: 7th and 8th grade (semester)
Derby: 7th and 8th grade (semester)
Thinkering Studio (twice a week for one full year)
Design, Make, Remix, Hack, Create, Build, Program, Craft, and more!
Thinkering Studio is a collaborative space/class/studio for students to:
explore questions, challenges, topics or technologies of interest, at their own pace, and in
directions of their choosing, collaborate informally and formally, in person and electronically,
synchronously and asynchronously
plan and reflect on their creations, processes, successes, difficulties, and learning through a
multimodal journal and portfolio
create footsteps, examples, resources, or other artifacts for themselves & others who might
follow
integrate technology as appropriate
(think 3M, Bell Labs, Google's 20% time, Apple's Blue Sky program, etc.)
They will build, test, and problem-solve electrical circuits that convert electrical energy to
mechanical energy. They will build an understanding of how microcontrollers and code are used
in everyday technology devices which are designed with a specific purpose or task, being
completed with a high level of repeatability and accuracy.
Schools offered:
BCS: 6th, 7th, and 8th grade
