Miss Fine's Center

Mia Manzulli received a Miss Fine’s Center Fellowship to develop curriculum for a new semester course in the English Department on “Playwriting and the Living Newspaper.” The course will ask students to study the art of playwriting; research news stories, both archival and contemporary, learning to question bias and determine the credibility of source material; and write original plays based on newspaper reporting and other public documents. This will be a hands-on, project driven course that incorporates the development of research and critical reading skills, creative writing skills, and basic performative work as well.

Heather Farlow and Julia Beckmann received a Miss Fine’s Center Fellowship to build a Movement and Dance Unit for use in the Music and Physical Education class for grades Pre Kindergarten and Kindergarten, so students can experience a variety of movement experiences. This unit will be 2-3 cycles in length and focus on the integration of agility, coordination, balance and flexibility to develop rhythmic movement skills. The students will develop their ability to follow directions, work together, develop motor skills, and release energy.

Annemarie Strange and Alli Treese received a Miss Fine’s Center Fellowship for work on the 6th grade science curriculum. They wrote and refined portions of the curriculum for class work in the fall in the garden and greenhouse. Additionally, they refined the existing ecosystem project to be much more robust using lesson plans and activities that were written by garden consultant Jess Bloomer who visited PDS in the spring of 2019.

Ms. Strange also restructured the 8th grade curriculum to add in more pieces with the garden and also to re-organize some of the labs students conduct.

Theodor Brasoveanu and Chandra Smith received a Miss Fine’s Center Fellowship to design a year-long course to provide a platform for advanced students to design and implement projects that are relevant to them and to our school community. The intent is that students who have completed the AP Computer Science A course and exam (or the equivalent thereof) will develop knowledge and expertise that is beyond a standard high school Computer Science curriculum. Students will focus on advanced topics such as algorithms and data structures, physical computing, machine learning and cybersecurity, in a framework that will prepare them for future careers in software engineering and information technology.