REEP

SPICE hot in fact.

This week, we launch Students Pursuing Innovation Creativity and Entrepreneurship (SPICE) at Carl Wunsche Sr. High School (CWHS) in Spring, Texas. Over a year in the making, SPICE is a social-innovation entrepreneurship program that challenges students to design and build a working prototype of a product and/or service to serve their community.

In late 2010, my son Javier Fernandez-Han and I began working with the leadership team at CWHS to promote youth-led social innovation by sharing a learning program we developed called “Invent and Innovate”. In early 2011, we produced a one-day conference called Students Pursuing Innovation Creativity and Entrepreneurship (SPICE) at CWHS where we challenged approximately 100 teens from CWHS and the three other high schools in Spring ISD to achieve several creative design challenges. The highlight challenge was to design and build a “ten-cent umbrella”. They worked in teams and could spend up to ten cents (ten acorns actually) bidding on a variety of junk such as discarded cardboard, plastic pieces, and foam pieces to use in creating their umbrellas. The really fun part of this particular challenge was that one member of each team got the opportunity to test the team umbrella under a heavy water downpour for 10 seconds.

The photos from that event reveal the creativity and joy we all experienced. The teens were deliberately assigned to work with students they did not know from other schools. They worked beautifully together, captivated by the challenges and energized to use their creativity. There were no team captains, no trophies, no judges, and no gold stars. Only a clear and captivating objective with clear guidelines and the space and freedom to explore, imagine and create. We deliberately minimized external rewards to make space for intrinsic motivation to flourish. Every team wanted to succeed for the sheer joy of creating something from their imagination and testing it under real world conditions to see if it worked. And yes, the vast majority of their umbrellas survived the 10 second downpour test. And yes, the teams worked harmoniously on their own.

We had so much fun with SPICE last year that we decided to expand it beyond a one-day conference. So for 2012 Javier and I are working with the leadership team at CWHS to launch SPICE as both a semester-long class as well as a Design Challenge open to all students. Approximately fifty 10^th grade students will participate in SPICE Class which will use the Invent and Innovate curriculum as a framework for creating their designs for the SPICE Design Challenge.  SPICE Class will meet as a regularly scheduled class for the entire Spring semester. Other students can participate by working on the SPICE Design Challenge without using the Invent and Innovate curriculum. They can participate as individuals, small-group teams, or as a class project in one of their current classes.  For example, students enrolled in Architecture/Drafting, Art, and Engineering classes might wish to pursue the SPICE Design Challenge as class projects.

So what is the SPICE Design Challenge for 2012? It is to design, build and test a working prototype of a product and/or service to enhance the learning experience of CWHS students at school or outside of school. The prototype could be a tangible object (e.g. a bookstand that fits on a student’s lap) or a service (e.g. vocabulary word lists turned into rap songs) or both (e.g. note-taking paper pre-printed with helpful advice and note-taking templates plus a website where students can watch video tutorials on effective study habits and where they can share suggestions).

All students participating in SPICE will participate in SPICE Launch (one-day conference to celebrate creativity and innovation and to announce the SPICE Design Challenge) on February 17^th and SPICE Showcase (one-day conference showcasing the designs generated by the students) on May 22, 2012. Between these two events, we’ll have industry mentors with experience in industrial design, creativity and entrepreneurship visit to provide formative feedback to the students as they design their products and/or services. At the SPICE Showcase, the designs considered the most feasible will be supported for implementation at CWHS during the Fall semester. They will also be recognized with SPICE awards named after the four hottest peppers on the planet – the Habanero, the Ghost, the Naga Viper, and the Trinidad Scorpion. These peppers are part of our logo.

If you’re interested in volunteering as an industry mentor for SPICE, please let me know via email. I can be reached at: 2Bplayfullycreative@gmail.com

I wish to thank our partners at CWHS for their open-mindedness, dedication and energy in launching SPICE with Javier and me. The CWHS team is comprised of school Principal Ms. Debi Koch, Director of Professional Learning Experiences Ms. Karla Sandoval, Social Studies Teacher Ms. Dana Tabor, and Career & Technology Teacher Stefanie Perritt-Corso.

As SPICE progresses during the semester, I’ll post updates and photos. We believe the students participating in SPICE will find innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship really cool…and really hot. SPICE hot.

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