Innovation lab opens at Willets Road School

Rebecca Klar
State Senator Elaine Philips opens the Innovation Lab at Willets Road School on Tuesday with members of the school administration, school board and students. (Photo by Rebecca Klar)

The East Williston school district is teaching children a new language: coding.

“This is the kids’ platform,” said Ed Kemnitzer, director of technology, innovation and information services. “They’re native, digital minds.”

At the Innovation Lab at the Willets Road School, which officially opened on Tuesday, students were busy tinkering with Ozobots even before the official ribbon-cutting. Ozobots, pocket-sized robots that follow a code created by the students with colored markers, are just one program students have available at the Innovation Lab.

The optional lab already has a waiting list.

Kemnitzer said 127 students have signed up, and they will take turns in groups of four on a rotating three-day schedule to use the lab during their lunch or recess.

State Sen. Elaine Philips watches a student code with Ozobots at the new Innovation Lab.
(Photo by Rebecca Klar)

“This is what they love to do; they’re engaged, they’re happy,” Kemnizter said. “They love tweaking and tinkering with ideas and it’s important that kids have the opportunity and the time to really dig deep into their passions.”

State Sen. Elaine Phillips, who secured grant money to help fund the lab, attended Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting.

Phillips told the students that the skills they’re cultivating at the lab will be put to use in fields like environmental science and cybersecurity.

“We’re going to need your talent,” Phillips said. “We’re going to need your brains.”

To start, the lab will introduce new items one by one for the students to learn, Kemnizter said. But once all the programs are taught, it will be a full “genius hour” where students have full rein to use whatever they choose, he said.

Emma Azevedo, a seventh-grader, said she has never invented stuff before but thought it would be cool to try out – which is exactly what Kemnizter said was the lab’s goal.

“It’s this whole process of how do we develop kids who are the next inventors of the world,” he said. “In the end they’ll become creators, not consumers.”

 

 

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