The Riviera Ridge School’s Maker Fair Encourages Scientific Inquiry and Exploration
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Santa Barbara, CA. (May 2022) – Students, teachers, and thinkers of all ages are invited to The Riviera Ridge School’s mountain-view campus on Saturday, May 14 for their fourth annual Maker Fair. Twenty-one different booths will fill the school, posing an fun and approachable scientific question and allowing visitors to engage in a short hands-on project to come up with the answer.
“The world has reached a tipping point, and we are in need of innovators who can solve complex problems: climate change, pandemics, and energy crises,” Director of Academic Innovation Melissa Wilson said. “American education has to go beyond teaching the mechanisms that led to these societal and environmental issues and instead give students agency to creatively solve them.”
At each booth, visitors are asked to use STEAM2 (science, tech/engineering, the arts, mathematics, and movement) concepts to help them solve problems. Riviera Ridge faculty and student teams will be manning each booth, which will pose a scientific query and activity. These include both playful and important questions, such as, “How far can you make a rocket fly?,” “How can you make ice cream from our garden?” and “How can you design a 3D object?”
“The goal of our Maker Fair is to showcase our STEAM2 programs and allow our community to become innovators themselves,” Wilson said. “At the heart of our Fair is the idea that genius is inside of us all if we tap into our own creativity, innovation and inspiration.”
The state-of-the art ocean view Center for Design and Creative Engineering will be open with the full kitchen and 3D printer available for tinkering. This day of scientific experimentation, collaboration, and joyful learning is free and open to the public.
The Fair also highlights the school’s interdisciplinary electives program where students take three courses a year of their choice in the STEAM2 areas. This year students had twenty-seven courses to choose from in a variety of disciplines. Courses have included surfing, coding, tropical ecology, the chemistry of chocolate, filmmaking, Photoshop, the musical, Shakespeare, fishing, SB Culture Blog, podcasts, chess, the farm-to-table movement, robotics, and much more.
“The hope is that by their eighth-grade year students have cultivated their personal passion and are ready to present their passion to the rest of our school community,” Wilson said. “The fair kicks off our school’s genius week, where students from Junior Kindergarten through Eighth Grade present their class projects and the middle school musical.”
“Our first Maker Fair was in 2016 and we did not have it during Covid, so we are excited to welcome our entire community back on campus for a magical day of hands-on learning,” Director of Admissions Molly Seguel said.
At Riviera Ridge, we provide student-centered, individualized learning in a joyful and nurturing community, inspiring academic excellence and valuing difference. The educational vision for each Riviera Ridge graduate is to empower individual potential, inspire purpose beyond self, and cultivate social responsibility as they prepare for high school and beyond.
For more information, email info@rivieraridge.org or call 805-569-1811 ext. 131.
