SNAP! Sessions

In their second year, SNAP! sessions are a programming opportunity where you will hear 5-6 unique stories highlighting the extraordinary impact girls’ schools have on the lives of individual students. Presenters with a limited number of slides will convey in only 6-7 minutes the essence of their particular program or class. SNAP! sessions are sponsored by One Schoolhouse.

Create, Collaborate, Innovate: A STEAM/Maker Education Course

DATE/TIME: Sunday, June 25, 4:45 PM-5:45 PM

PRESENTERS: Amy Banks, Lower School Science Coordinator and Karen Roberts, Lower School Technology Integration Coordinator | The Hockaday School (TX)

Attendees will learn about Create, Collaborate, Innovate—a course developed and team-taught by a Hockaday School science teacher, technology teacher, and art teacher. This STEAM/Making course provides our girls with opportunities to imagine, design, and create solutions to personally-meaningful problems. The students participate in “skill-building” projects, including woodworking, textiles, electronics, and 3D CAD design and printing. They then apply these skills as they develop and present a proposal for and execute an original project. Students document their process, collaborate with peers, participate in peer- and self-review, and build resiliency and problem-solving skills as they experience the process of iteration.

Engaging All School Stakeholders to Inspire Innovative Initiatives

DATE/TIME: Monday, June 26, 3:40 PM-4:40 PM

PRESENTERS: Rebecca Clarke, Principal | Walford Anglican School for Girls (AUS)

This session is designed for School leaders and administrators. It will aim to show how all stakeholders (students, parents, staff, alumni) were engaged in the strategic planning process at Walford Anglican School for Girls (Adelaide, South Australia) and how this grass roots consultation process grew a range of innovations and initiatives in our School. A number of initiatives will be showcased during the presentation, including but not limited to: Walford Grands — an exclusive “club” for grandparents which offers learning sessions and opportunities for grandparents to engage with grand daughters; Walford Women’s Collective — a women’s networking platform designed to link women including alumni across our community, Parenting Seminars for Early Learning parents, The Walford Festival of Ideas — a student entrepreneurial festival which forms part of the work we are doing with Professor Yong Zhao.

Integrating the Arts with Humanities

DATE/TIME: Monday, June 26, 3:40 PM-4:40 PM

PRESENTERS: Ellen Phillips, Theater Teacher/Play Director and Alyssa Morreale, English Teacher | Trinity Hall (NJ)

During this session, attendees will explore a variety of theater techniques and games that help broaden student’s presentation skills in the Humanities classroom. The games may also be used to help review content in a fun and engaging format. Attendees will learn the specific descriptions and rules of games such as party quirks, the alphabet game and others and how to utilize them in classes such as World Languages, History and English.

ME, Inc. — Creating Your Very Own Dream Job as a Financial Planner

DATE/TIME: Monday, June 26, 3:40 PM-4:40 PM

PRESENTERS: Eleanore Blayney, Consumer Advocate and Special Diversity Advisor | Certified Financial Planning Board of Standards (DC); Kate Holmes, CFP® Professional, Founder, CEO | Belmore Financial, LLC (CO); Shannah Game, CFP® Professional, Chief Millennial Financial Strategist | Your Millennial Money (CA); Zaneilia Harris, CFP® Professional, Author, Founder | Harris & Harris Wealth Management (MD); and Marguerita Chang, CFP® Professional, CEO | Blue Ocean Global Wealth (MD)

Few girls aspire to become financial planners, never having heard about the career or assuming it’s dull and heavy with numbers. But imagine if girls discovered that the field is open to creative and compassionate females who design their own careers, work when, how, and where they wish, helping people they care about. This session features four extraordinarily creative women CFP® professionals, successfully doing “their own thing” and loving every working day of their life. A major session objective is to introduce participants to the art and joy of financial planning via creative visioning they can share with their girls. Each participant will tell her story in a SNAP! format:
“A Girl, Her Laptop, & the World” – Kate Holmes
“Coloring Outside the Lines” – Shannah Compton Game
“The Beauty of Personal Finance” – Rita Cheng
“Financial Style Matters: My Story of Finance ‘n Stillettos” – Zaneilia Harris

No Holds Bard: Putting the Play Back in Shakespeare

DATE/TIME: Monday, June 26, 3:40 PM-4:40 PM

PRESENTERS: Jenny Watkins, Department Chair | Saint Gertrude High School (VA) and Molly McAleer, English Faculty | St. Catherine’s School (VA)

We’re all familiar with the collective student groan when Shakespeare appears on the syllabus. So how do you combat “Shakespeare Fear” and engage students of all levels? Our contemporary take on teaching combines synthesizing the texts with modern media, connecting with mainstream music, playing with production, and classical analysis. Our goal is to marry two concepts when approaching Shakespeare: a sense of play and seeing the work as a living, constantly evolving text.

Renewable Resources in an Age of Change

DATE/TIME: Sunday, June 25, 4:45 PM-5:45 PM

PRESENTERS: Janeth Eby, Sixth Grade Science Teacher and Lydia Fields, Sixth Grade Language Arts Teacher | Holton-Arms School (MD)

This sixth grade interdisciplinary language arts and science unit introduces students to the issue of meeting the world’s energy needs in a sustainable way. In their language arts class, students read “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, the true story of a boy in Malawi who builds a wind turbine from scrap and saves his family farm. Simultaneously, in science the students design, test, modify and retest blades for a model wind turbine, practicing the engineering cycle. The unit ends with a mock town hall meeting where students play the parts of stakeholders debating the installation of a nearby wind farm. This project may inspire others to use interdisciplinary collaboration as a way to build empathy and to think both critically and creatively about global issues.

Students Creating Change

DATE/TIME: Sunday, June 25, 4:45 PM-5:45 PM

PRESENTERS: Laura Day, Director of Service Learning | The Hockaday School (TX)

In this session, we will describe how we worked with students’ passions to help them create change and work with local organizations. One student who is a jewelry maker did an independent study with a local non-profit doing social entrepreneurship with low-income women. Another student developed relationships with a local community center and on her own created a sustainable summer camp for 50 students in a low-income neighborhood. We will offer these stories and more examples of students taking a real interest in partnering with public organizations to make their community better.

Tinkering and Tesla: Inspiring the Next Generation of Female Scientists

DATE/TIME: Sunday, June 25, 4:45 PM-5:45 PM

PRESENTERS: Mary Ann Domanska, 2nd Grade Teacher – Girls | Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (PA)

Creative stories are the perfect window for students to become risk-takers, imagine themselves in different roles, and explore new topics. In Emic Rizzle, Tinkerer, girls are exposed to a young female protagonist who is empowered in roles that are viewed as stereotypically male. This curriculum will motivate students and teachers to celebrate tinkering as a vital vehicle for testing theories, learning the concepts of trial and error, stretching creative muscles, and believing that girls can be Makers, too! I want to empower each of my students to know they have the capacity to affect the world for good.

Using Pop Culture to Teach Histology (or Zombie Anatomy)

DATE/TIME: Monday, June 26, 3:40 PM-4:40 PM

PRESENTERS: Susan Cavar, Science Department Chair | Lauralton Hall (CT)

Histology and rote memorization usually go hand in hand. In classic Anatomy, students must be able to identify and describe tissue samples and list their myriad functions. The complex interplay of these tissue types is often missed due to the deluge of strange vocabulary and seemingly obscure facts. While brainstorming ideas to present this information, I noticed everyone’s fascination with zombies. What better way to illustrate the importance of each tissue type than to describe the effects of its degradation on the aggressiveness and health of zombies? – or to show the interdependence of all of the tissues?

Zoo Animal Enrichment: An Engineering Design Challenge for New Makers

DATE/TIME: Sunday, June 25, 4:45 PM-5:45 PM

PRESENTERS: Simon Mangiaracina, STEM Teacher | Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders (TX)

Experience one middle school’s challenge to introduce its youngest students to the new MakerSpace. By partnering with a local rescue zoo, the Ann Richards School in Austin, TX, created a service-learning project their 6th graders wouldn’t soon forget. The school helped empower their girls to be confident and resilient in the act of making, while making a difference. Students researched an animal species for whom they would design and build puzzle feeders, activity panels or foraging boxes. At the zoo, students completed behavioral analyses of the animals interacting with student-made enrichment devices. Discover the challenges and opportunities that come with a MakerSpace. Learn how to successfully train students on complex tools and create a system that encourages safety and responsibility. Most importantly, learn how to apply those skills to authentic project-based learning experiences.