“They did a fabulous job,” said Ann Fortescue, executive director of the Springfield Museum of Art. “We needed it to be sturdy, which it certainly is, and accessible.”
Visitors to the museum will be able to use the light table to experiment with color, she said, by building things using colored plastic shapes. Light shows through the table’s surface, also allowing users to trace images on paper.
“We’re extending learning not only here,” Fortescue said, “but at the YouMedia lab as well.”
YouMedia is a digital media lab in the CareerConnectED Center at The Dome. Some of the projects it offers students include graphic design, art, music and video production.
The museum received a grant from the First Energy Foundation to create the table.
Students were excited to work on the project, YouMedia Co-Coordinator Rene Stratton said.
“It’s nice that they can take the skills that they learn in YouMedia and actually bring it to the community,” she said.
A project like this, “teaches those special soft-skills,” Stratton said. “The teamwork, the collaboration. The problem solving.”
Triston Rogers is a senior at Springfield High School and was one of the students who helped build the light table.
“We wanted to do something for the community,” Rogers said.
He’s proud children will be able to use the piece he helped create, he said.
“Little kids can actually interact with the art itself,” he said.
Korene Embrack, a freshman at Springfield High School, also helped build it. She decided to start wood-shop lessons at the YouMedia Center because she thought it would be fun. She’s been going to YouMedia after school since the middle of the school year.
“I’m really like creating things and I’m very open to new forms of creating things,” Embrack said.
About the Author