Blue's Close of the Rock Arc

This week marked the close of the Rock Arc.And, very simply, that meant: we had to set up for a public presentation of our work. We had to reflect on what happened, why it happened, and what we learned. We had to figure out the best ways to capture an audience's attention at Expo Night. We had to work as a team to list out and distribute tasks so that everyone was contributing in a limited about of time. And, equally as important, we had to reserve some time to not be so serious. But first, down to business.Didactic materials are those informational signs and displays that you find at museums. They do a few really important things for the audience of museum goers: they describe the stuff on display, provide some context or historical background, and they usually point (literally, or metaphorically) to something else to learn or look at.Because the first Arc's Expo Night doesn't include student presentations, all the information that our audience should know has to be communicated in another way. To do this, Blue Band envisioned the space as a hybrid between a museum and a VIP lounge treehouse, and so we spent a lot of time writing didactic materials that were informative and also fun. Those materials were then arranged into whimsical displays.     Everyone did a really great job of deciding what information was important to display and how to best display it in our treehouse. A last minute design solution also yielded a fun cairn-making station using the rocks we had collected over the course of the Arc.       Another highlight of our preparation was a ROCKumentary (filmed, directed, and edited by Blue) that documented a rock formation project that we presented to the Orange Band. Our classroom television transformed the space into an intimate viewing room.       With all our hard work this week (and every other week preceding), a strong theme that Blue is continuing to nurture is the practice of flow and focus through fun activities that help to punctuate but also highlight our serious academics.This week, blind contour drawings became another tool in that toolbox.Get a piece of paper, a marker, and a partner. Sit across from your partner. Touch your marker to the paper and don't pick it up. Don't look at your paper. Look at your partner. Pick a starting point on your partner's face, and draw an imaginary line with your eyes around their features. As your eyes move, also move your marker. Don't look down.You have 60 seconds. Go.Yup, keep going.