Innovation Meets Collaboration at Roycemore School
Since its inception in 1915, Roycemore School has served as a place for students to discover their passions, think without limits, find their voice, and live courageously. Roycemore students are encouraged to take ownership of their education, to understand their strengths and areas to work on. Nowhere on campus is there a more physical embodiment of this mindset than the Innovation Center.
The mere presence of this maker space is a testimony of the commitment of the school to empower its students. Students Hanu Snyder and Aidan Scheidt presented their plan for what was at the time a vacant space to the Roycemore Board of Trustees in 2020 as part of their January Short-Term and P3 projects. It was their vision to have student input direct the way the Innovation Center would be crafted, and to represent the needs and wants of the students themselves. After receiving approval from the Board in 2021, the Innovation Center was well on its way to becoming a reality. Fast forward to 2025, the Innovation Center serves as a prime example of how students and teachers can collaborate to provide impactful, hands-on learning opportunities.
INNOVATION MINDSET
The Innovation Center at Roycemore consists of two “classroom” spaces, an Ideation Lounge, and a Maker Space with a wide array of technology tools for students and teachers to utilize. On a given day a passerby may witness Upper and Middle School students mingling in the Ideation Lounge, Lower School students creating Ecosystem Dioramas in the Maker Space, or the Innovation Coordinator Nina Rozes teaching a class on Design Essentials.
Mrs. Rozes has served as the Innovation Coordinator for Roycemore for the past 4 years. Her primary function as Innovation Coordinator is to collaborate with faculty on developing unique, technology based projects that align with their curriculum, standards, and timeframe. Much like the Innovation Center itself, Mrs. Rozes often serves as a resource for students and teachers at Roycemore. Teachers at Roycemore have the opportunity to collaborate with Mrs. Rozes for help with using particular technology for their lesson plans, receive professional development with emerging technologies, and pick her brain for how to craft engaging experience-based lessons for their students. Teachers at Roycemore are able to take what they have learned from Mrs. Rozes and bring it directly back to their students.
“I love working with the faculty here. It is special being able to see through so many projects and witness the creativity of so many people.”
— Nina Rozes, Roycemore Innovation Coordinator
At Roycemore, providing students with intentionally designed, technology based projects is essential. This past school year, the collaborative force of the Innovation Center, Roycemore faculty, and Roycemore students was on full display for a student-run Food Truck Festival. What started as a fourth grade unit on the five regions of the United States, the Food Truck Festival quickly took on a life of its own with the help of the Innovation Center.
FOOD TRUCK PROJECT
An initial brainstorming meeting with Early Childhood and Lower School Division Head Darcy Aksamitowski and Mrs. Rozes led to a project full of real-work research and experience for Roycemore students. After a stint of collaboration with Enrichment Coordinator Eliese Ronke on how to differentiate their approach to teaching about the five regions of the United States, Mrs. Aksamitowski arranged a meeting with Mrs. Rozes on how to make her spark of an idea a reality. They both quickly realized that the Food Truck Festival had potential to be a special project for the students.
Mrs. Rozes stated, “the meeting really just turned into us talking like a million miles a minute and throwing all of these ideas out there."
Sparking from their discussions, an experiential learning project was born. The 4th grade students would break into separate groups to have their own business representing a different region of the United States. The groups would be required to name their Food Truck business, decide on their cuisine, develop their branding, dictate their pricing/menu, and complete their project with a festival where the Roycemore community could come together to patronize their businesses. The selected region would play a key part in each business decision the students would make. Students had to make decisions on their products and brands based on the research they completed about their chosen location. “We talked about color schemes and what that teaches about a region. We discussed not just what foods are grown and eaten in those regions, but also some cultural practices and key features of the natural environment of those areas. We asked students to ponder what is the identity of their region and why is that important to know,” Rozes explained.
The resources of the Innovation Center took this project to heights that would not have been possible without it. From the branding side of things, Mrs. Rozes was able to work with the students, visiting their classroom to teach about different aspects of the project like brand identity, creating a logo, and storytelling. Students were able to use tools like the cricket and t-shirt press to create their uniforms that they would wear on the big day. Their shirts were complete with their created logo and chosen color scheme. The collaboration of Mrs. Aksamitowski, Mrs. Eliese, and Mrs. Rozes equipped the students with the guidance they needed to make their collective visions a reality.
On the physical day of the Food Truck festival, attendees were treated to food from each region, served by the fourth graders themselves, and sent on their way with a customer experience survey to complete. “We really got a chance to see so many different kinds of team dynamics and how every team came up with successful solutions, but how they got there were all so very different.” Mrs. Rozes remarked, reflecting on the challenges students faced and overcame on the big day.
THIS YEAR AND BEYOND
With 2024 in the rearview, Mrs. Rozes is eager to see what Roycemore students will achieve using the Innovation Center this year and beyond. Mrs. Rozes looks to continue to refine projects that have happened every year, while collaborating with Roycemore teachers to elevate their lesson plans in new and creative ways. “The vision is for the space to be an extension of the classroom…to have a space for people of all ages and levels of expertise to come in and feel empowered to create confidently and with purpose.”
