Last week, Mosaic students participated in the Winter session of Exhibitions of Learning (EoLs). This is the chance for students to pick a topic from one of their academic classes and spend a semester conducting research and proposing a plan to interpret their findings through a medium of their choice.

Every project begins with a driving question that focuses the research and incorporates the medium, such as "How can I use dance to show  the relation between war and religion?" and “How can I make a game in Minecraft that will be playable and functioning with all features as the physical copy?” The latter question referring to an engineering project that used a board game about the life of an eagle from Energy class and built it into a fully functioning 3D Minecraft game. 

At each presentation, students present their topic and why they chose it, also including some details of how their learning has been interpreted. For example, students chose to address bullying, and used individual flashbacks in the play to show an individual's inner workings and motivations, or how the choreographer would use certain dance techniques like contract and release or mirroring to represent overcoming obstacles or conflict. After the presentations, the floor is open for feedback and discussion from the audience of peers, teachers and families.  Each presentation is also assessed by the instructor of the academic class represented in the work. Students also submit an academic paper detailing the process of research and interpretation for assessment.

We've collected a sampling of photos from the Tuesday and Thursday presentations, at school and at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. All photos were taken by the IDEAS Academy Photography Interns: Bao Vang and Madison O'Brien.