At The Idea School, all students take engineering as a core part of the curriculum. This year, teacher Aryeh Laufer has reimagined the class as an “Inquiry” class that combines engineering and self-directed projects. So, the course has been nicknamed “Inquineering.” Some of the students have opted to be in a sub-group of the class called Democratic Inquiry where they completely design and manage their own projects. In addition to the engineering and entrepreneurship skills the students are developing, they are also building lifelong skills such as time and project management.

The rest of the Inquineering students—who are co-taught by Rabbi Koslowe—started out the year studying the Book of Jonah in preparation for Yom Kippur, and learning or reviewing how to program LEDs to light up in different intervals and levels of brightness. Their design challenge was then to illustrate a scene that depicts Jonah’s behavior in the story, using light.