Tickets are $20 and include pizza, drinks, and gameplay.
Genesis, a Junior is taking the elective course, Ollywood for the second time because she fell in love with film and film critique the first time around. Ollywood teacher, Brent Mix has created an advanced track of the course for Genesis, challenging her to take a deep dive into the works of Akira Kurosawa and to take on the role of assistant teacher. Genesis led a lesson on what it means to be a film critic. Take a look at the opening of her lesson.
Human Rights Day, recognized annually on December 10th commemorates the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On Monday, we celebrated the 70th birthday of the document by examining the preamble and discussing the progress and transgressions we’ve made since the document was ratified.
Field Experience
The students in the Ollywood elective have been investigating the elements of film and film critique. As a part of their investigation, they were challenged to bring famous movie scripts to life. The educators from the Goodman Theater worked with the students and provided each group with some practical tips on script analysis and performance.
School is in session from 9:00 am – 12:10 pm.
Explore Peru through its songs, dances, and chamber music in this concert for string quartet and voice! Singer Carolina Gomez of the Mulati Ensemble will sing favorite folk songs including “La flor de la canela” (“The Cinnamon Flower”). Hear also “Manaña cuando me vaya” (“When I Leave Tomorrow”), the Afro-Peruvian Christmas dance Hatajo de Negritos, the Andean Passacalle “El Huascarán,” the Danza Peruana No. 8 by Armando Guevara Ochoa, and more!
With Carolina Gomez, voice; Caitlin Edwards and Rasa Mahmoudian, violin; Jay Pike, viola; and Tom Clowes, cello.
Suggested donation: $10 at the door
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
Join us for a rapid prototyping workshop!
Have you ever visualized an item in your mind and longed for it to exist in physical form? Spend the afternoon working with your peers to bring an original design to life. You will learn to sketch and build your design using lines and basic shapes. You will identify a problem in the world and come up with a design to solve the problem. You will work in small groups to create a prototype of the design using cardboard and basic tools.
Be prepared to collaborate with your peers, think outside the box, and have lots of fun.
We talk about and practice gratitude regularly at GCE. Our students and faculty recognize the unique and amazing opportunities we have as members of the GCE community. During Soapbox, we reflected on what showing gratitude looks like.
Photo Gallery
Students in the Game Changers Elective have been pursuing the guiding question, How can you harness the power of play?. In this course, students have taken on the role of a game player and game designer. They are getting a behind-the-scenes look at tabletop games, investigating how they are played and how they are created. As a part of their investigation, students have been studying strategy, probability, and game mechanics.
On this day, students played spades using a souped-up deck of cards called Heckadeck, a deck of 160 hand-illustrated playing cards designed to add a twist to your favorite card games or for you to design your own game. Creator of Heckadeck and founder of More Lies Publishing, Travis Nichols aims to inspire and enable creativity through games, activity books, stories, and cool stuff to get kids and post-kids busy living to draw, write, build, dance, go outside, and explore.
Field Experience
Students in the Ollywood Elective have been pursuing the guiding question, What makes a movie a movie?. In this course, students have taken on the role of a film critic and are learning to evaluate films based on 3 stages of production: pre-production, production, and post-production. As a part of their investigation of pre-production, students have been learning about the role and creativity involved in scouting locations for film settings. For this Field Experience, students were given the opportunity to propose a location worthy of the time of a location scout.
There were lots of great pitches for locations, including:
And there were more! The ultimate winner, though, despite the frequency of its use as a setting — in films such as The Dark Night, Batman Begins, Wanted, and The Blues Brothers — is Lower Wacker Drive. So the students explored the different landscapes of Lower Wacker Drive and captured photos to visualize the story they want to tell.
The purpose of this Field Experience is to investigate the guiding question, what is the role of a location scout?. Students will familiarize themselves with the role of the location scout as one part of the pre-production process in the making of a film. Students will also create a short storyboard demonstrating their understanding of the responsibilities of the scout.
Students will walk around Lower Wacker Drive to collect photographs to create their short storyboard.
Field Experience
In the first unit of the Biomimicry Elective, the students have been investigating the guiding question, What would a plant do?. In this course, students are studying the concept of biomimicry through Art & Science. They are investigating diverse case studies of biomimicry that rethink art, technology, and society from the perspective of nature in order to rethink and redesign flawed products. As a part of this investigation, the students visited Interface, a global flooring company whose products are not only inspired by nature but whose production positively impacts the planet.
The students spent the morning touring the Interface showroom and talking to Mikhail Davis, their Director of Restorative Enterprise to learn more about how biomimicry is applied. Our biggest takeaway from Mikhail is that nature has already solved all of our problems, our job is to ask her the right questions to find the solutions.
The students visited Interface to learn how nature impacts not only the design of their products but the mission and philosophy of the company.
The students will talk to Mikhail Davis, the Director of Restorative Enterprise at Interface.
Truly ecstatic to kick off our GCE Tiny Concert Music Series where we host musicians and bands at our Lincoln Park Campus. Huge thanks to Jed and the guys from Cider Provider, Violet Crime, and Thom Perry – Andersonville folk-artist, street performer and chef, crooning traditional folk tunes accompanied with his own banjo playing. Also, thanks to Jet at Busk & Barrel Records.
If you’re interested in playing a small intimate show, email [email protected]
Come check out some music from our Alumnus, Jed. Jed’s been working on creating music to bridge communities since he graduated. Come for an evening of singing, cider, and cookies. You won’t want to miss this intimate performance.
Field Experience
The students in the Innovative School Design workshop have been assigned to think about the design of our new facility. They ventured out to explore a space that could potentially be our new school. As they stepped out of the Roosevelt El station, the students reveled at their proximity to the Metra station, the park, and a handful of their favorite food spots. Upon entering the building, they were greeted by an open loft full of possibilities.
After exploring the interior of the building, the students ventured outside to Grant Park where they got a better sense of their surroundings and a great view of the exterior of the building. They discovered public artworks, a skatepark, and even started to map out their route from home to this new space.
Join our community for the 2019/2020 school year. Our application is due on January 7, 2019. Fill one out here.
Join us at GCE for a prospective student day! At most schools, these days are known as shadow days, but at GCE, you’ll be in the spotlight, participating in class, group work, and truly experiencing the learning. Our spotlight days will run from 8:45am-12:30pm and include lunch.
The next available dates for spotlight days are Thursday, November 15; Monday, November 19; and Thursday, December 13.
If you would like to attend, you can fill out the form here to get started!
Join us for our Winter Term Final Presentations, the best way to experience learning with our students as they share their discoveries from the past term. The event will include opportunities to learn more about GCE’s curriculum, engage in activities planned and facilitated by GCE students, and to see for yourself why Action Projects demonstrate student mastery.
Even though most of our students aren’t able to participate in the midterm elections yet, they did participate in student council elections. After hearing compelling speeches from three presidential candidates, the students embraced the power of their vote, and we’re proud to announce Citlalli as student council president. As president, Citlalli promises to speak up for and act on behalf of her constituents.