trusses....

Yesterday carpenters added trusses to the construction of the new Clear Spring School wood shop addition. That's a real sign of progress, and I was glad to be on hand to help hoist a few and hold them while they were nailed and screwed in place. Today the plywood roof decking will be added.

One of my students has planned a small outdoor classroom for the Clear Spring School as his eagle scout project. It's a challenging project and with some funding from school, he's raising over half the funds himself. You can support his project through his gofundme site: https://www.gofundme.com/f/dyfdh-steven039s-eagle-scout-project

Yesterday we also added 5 more Froebel blocks to the school playground, giving our students full sets of gifts number 3 and 4.

An article, "Burnt Oysters" in Columbia Magazine described a project in which students and faculty followed recipes recorded by a craftsman over 500 years ago to make paint, varnish, pigments and the like. The craftsman whose name is not known had left 171 folios of instructions and observations. As one of the world's first how to writers his notes are now kept safe in the French National Library. They were written when it was rare to be able to read, so were left unpublished.

There is a great connection between making and knowing, and as I've suggested in the past, craftsmanship and the knowledge derived from it served as the foundation of modern science and are still the best means to unleash the powers of scientific observation.

According to the article the exercise of recreating the formulas "served as a reminder of the simple pleasures of hands-on invention–– and of the adage that there is no learning like doing."

Make, fix, and create. Give others the opportunity to learn likewise.