artsed4all Art & the Environment, Arts Education, STEAM, Technology

“Wish & Chips” STEAM Challenge

Autodesk-GalleryOn Tuesday, May 12th, Rooftop students and their families have an exciting opportunity to visit the Autodesk Gallery, from 6pm-8:30pm.

Autodesk, Inc., is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment industries—including the last 19 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects—use Autodesk software to design, visualize, and simulate their ideas before they’re ever built or created.

Bringing together stories of exceptional design and engineering from across the globe, the Autodesk Gallery celebrates the creative process and shows how people are using new technology to imagine, design, and create a better world.

Named a top destination by Wired magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle, the gallery features more than 20 exhibits, including original works by Lego, Mercedes-Benz, Nike, and more.

Rooftop students are invited to tour the Autodesk Gallery and to learn more about how STEAM learning is bringing nature and technology together with The Hummingbird Effect, thanks to a mini-grant from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Celebrate Urban Birds.

Try folding an origami bird or put your design & engineering skills to the test with the “Wish & Chips” STEAM Challenge. Students are invited to design and test a package to safely ship a single Pringles Potato Chip through the US Postal Service to Rooftop School. Packages must be postmarked and received by Friday, May 22, 2015 to be eligible. 

Download a pdf of the Wish & Chips STEAM Challenge.

Wish & Chips 1

Wish & Chips 2

artsed4all STEAM, Technology, Visual Arts

The Fine Print

“Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.” 

— HENRY DAVID THOREAU

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In with the old and out with the new. What a difference a century makes for the art of printing!

Rooftop Art Coordinator Cheryl Ball has an appreciation for the art of the book. From papermaking to bookbinding, the art of making a fine book by hand is a slow process that requires much patience. A time warp tour with Cheryl opened our eyes to the past and future of printing.

The evening began with a visit to a small custom letterpress, bookbinding and papermaking studio, filled with antique printing presses and beautiful handmade treasures by papermaker, letterpress printer and book artist Rhiannon Alpers of Gazelle & Goat.

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Then, off to marvel at 3D printing and automated machines at the San Francisco Museum of Arts and Crafts.

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“Data Clay: Digital Strategies For Parsing The Earth” showcased experiments in ceramics, coupled with digital technology, while Chris Eckert’s “Mechanical Parables” hummed, whirred and delighted.

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artsed4all Arts Education, Media Arts, STEAM, Technology

Hands across the Water

Today, a huge storm closed schools all over the Bay Area, but yesterday, a brave young woman took to the podium to speak out for “those 66 million girls who are out of school.”

Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai is the “first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the first young person” to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala added with good humor, “I am pretty certain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers.” Sharing the honor with 60-year old children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi of India, Malala accepted the prize on behalf of children all over the world. “It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change.”

In her speech, Malala spoke of her love of learning and recalled “when my friends and I would decorate our hands with henna for special occasions. Instead of drawing flowers and patterns we would paint our hands with mathematical formulas and equations.”


Rooftop’s fourth grade Susty Girls celebrated by creating art from their own hands, while listening to Malala’s Nobel address.

Dear brothers and sisters, the so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don’t. Why is it that countries which we call “strong” are so powerful in creating wars but so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult?

As we are living in the modern age, the 21st century and we all believe that nothing is impossible. We can reach the moon and maybe soon will land on Mars. Then, in this, the 21st century, we must be determined that our dream of quality education for all will also come true.

So let us bring equality, justice and peace for all. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me. You. It is our duty.

So we must work … and not wait.

Click here for video and transcript of the Nobel Lecture by Malala Yousafzai, Oslo, 10 December 2014.

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Malala challenges girls everywhere to try their hand at coding by participating in The Hour of Code.

http://hourofcode.com/us

Students are encouraged to access and learn from these coding activities and tutorials all year round: