Spring Project Week: Glitter n Grease

Progressive educators are not huge fans of final exams. What do they show? That students can remember what they were told and what they read? That's sort of useful, if you're not really interested in what they've learned to do with that knowledge. At The Putney School, we have Project Week where students expand on what they've learned in their classes, or indulge in a mini seminar of something completely different, but in a project-based, problem-solving environment. There are individual projects and group projects of twenty hours each (each student does at least one stemming from academic work, plus another), spread over the final ten days of fall and spring. This spring Math Teacher Penny Ridgdill (left) and Science Teacher Dawn Zweig presented a group project entitled "Glitter n Grease," a seminar in automobile maintenance and repair for girls that featured a visit from alumna Demeny Pollitt '97, owner and manager of Burlington, Vermont's Girlington Garage. Here are a few photos of them studying the mathematics of volume and the physics of leverage by changing the oil and filter on Dawn's vintage sports car and my motorcycle.