SCHOOL LAB
School Lab is a design research project and an interactive installation.
It investigates ways everyday school objects, rituals and settings shape students’experience of school. The point for this look into student experience is threefold:
1. to surface less explored ways of thinking about what makes school “school” for students
2. to function as a fresh way to speculate about school change and improvement
3. to support the capacity of students and youth organizers to imagine the kinds of schools they want, even as they engage in struggles to keep the schools they need
School Lab is a partnership with students, youth organizing and education justice organizations.
Already youth organizing groups across the country are working to make schools better places and more conducive learning environments. They are engaged in fighting against school closings, fighting for civics and sexual health curricula, for healthy lunches and gym classes, etc. We intend to bring an imaginative capacity to the wealth of experience that these students and organizations have in organizing and youth-
led advocacy. We are already partnered locally with the Boston Youth Organizing Project and the Boston Student Advisory Council, and we are happy to spread our work regionally and nationally.
