Innovative Teaching Spaces
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Discover a world of limitless possibilities within our library's stacks, our garden's planters, and the inspiring walls of the Bullard Bright IDEA Lab. At Harpeth Hall, if you can dream it, you can do it in our innovative teaching spaces.
- Ann Scott Carell Library
- Bullard Bright IDEA Lab
- Robotics Lab
- Stephanie Balmer Garden for Student Engagement
- Teaching Kitchen
Ann Scott Carell Library
Ann Scott Carell Library
The 20,000-square-foot facility serves as the information and technology hub of the campus, housing comprehensive library services along with the school's network and technology support team.
THE LIBRARY
The Ann Scott Carell Library is home to the most comfortable chairs on campus and they surround an inviting fireplace. The library, with its huge windows overlooking Souby lawn, is a place with quiet nooks for those who wish to read and five small study rooms for collaboration with classmates. The library houses a 30,000 item collection and also provides students with thousands of electronic resources. The library is open every day from 7:30am – 5:00pm.
The lower level includes the help desk (the Bear Cave), the archives room, a meeting room, and a makerspace called, the Design Den.
BEAR CAVE
Harpeth Hall's Laptop Help Desk is located on the lower level of the Ann Scott Carell Library. It is open Monday - Friday during the school year and Tuesdays and Thursdays during June and July.
TECHNOLOGY
Every student in grades 5 through 12 uses a laptop as part of her learning experience. Campus technology includes:
- More than 150 faculty and staff laptops and approximately 700 student laptops
- A schoolwide wireless network
- Software to support all disciplines
- Scanners, digital cameras, and video cameras for faculty and student use
- A fully-automated library with catalog and database access all over campus as well as from home
- Internet access with email for students, faculty, staff, and administrators
- A long-range strategic plan for our technology goals
- Access to a learning management system for all students and teachers
- Ceiling-mounted wireless projectors in all rooms; and probes, graphing calculators, and video microscopes in math and science classes
Harpeth Hall is committed to preparing students to be lifelong learners and effective users of information and ideas because a well-rounded education prepares students for any type of career they might choose. The Information Services Department offers an exemplary information literacy program for students to help them develop the skills to find, evaluate, and use information.
Bullard Bright IDEA Lab
Bullard Bright IDEA Lab
As a school founded on bold ideas, Harpeth Hall continues to look beyond tomorrow to innovate for the global community our girls will enter. The next level in the school’s educational excellence is the new Bullard Bright IDEA Lab.
The Bright IDEA Lab is a place for learning, experimenting, and dreaming as you have never seen before. An epicenter for creativity, critical thought, and collaboration, the Lab brings middle and upper school students and teachers together to learn from each other, build on shared experiences, take intellectual risks, and explore new frontiers.
“In a time when life is reimagined for all of us and the norms and routines of yesterday are shed, a Bright IDEA Lab gives us the opportunity to envision a different kind of learning space,” Harpeth Hall Head of School Jess Hill said. “A classroom, presentation space, studio, maker space, and lab all in one, this flexible space is without definition in the traditional sense. … In this space, the connections, collaborations, and possibilities are endless.”
The Bright IDEA Lab promotes:
Innovation
- Connection between the sciences and the humanities.
Design
- Problem-solving skills through engineering, coding, entrepreneurship, digital humanities, and interdisciplinary scholarship.
Education in Action
- Opportunities to learn from featured speakers, participate in professional development sessions convene student/teacher meetings, and conduct workshops to research, build, and launch entrepreneurial projects.
Robotics Lab
The Robotics Lab
In the robotics lab, girls use science, coding, and creative thinking to create and test robotic functions. The Robotics Lab is also home to the Bear Bots, Harpeth Hall's robotic team, founded in 2022.
The determination of Harpeth Hall’s new robotics team is fierce. From a starter kit of aluminum rods, flat bearings, green plastic gears, and hundreds of tiny nuts and screws, they built a robot worthy of competing against the best. The BearBots achieved milestones rare for a first-year competition team — first with an Excellence Award at a local tournament, then at state competition, and finally on the world stage. The team showcased its engineering, design, and programming skills against the best of the best high school teams at the 2022 VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas, Texas. More than 800 schools from across the globe attended. The trip marked the first time a Harpeth Hall robotics team has qualified for worlds.
What makes a robot work? Learn here!
- 1. Engineering design notebook
- 2. Driver controller
- 3. Front claw
- 4. Rear lift
- 5. Antenna
- 6. License plate
- 7. Inertial sensor
- 8. Motors, 9. Axels, 10. Wheels
- 11. The brain
1. Engineering design notebook
A log and drawings that document the robot build and design process. Students reference and update the notebook as they make changes to the robot throughout the year. The notebook is also part of the judging process for awards at tournaments. A strong notebook helped earn Harpeth Hall the Excellence Award (best in show) at Franklin Road Academy’s tournament in 2022.
2. Driver controller
3. Front claw
4. Rear lift
5. Antenna
6. License plate
7. Inertial sensor
8. Motors, 9. Axels, 10. Wheels
11. The brain
Stephanie Balmer Garden for Student Engagement
Stephanie Balmer Garden for Student Engagement
The Stephanie Balmer Garden for Student Engagement is a permanent tribute honoring Dr. Stephanie Balmer, our beloved sixth Head of School from 2014 to 2018. Located in the same space that Dr. Balmer worked with students and faculty to plan a school garden, this expanded garden will serve as a community garden, an outdoor classroom, a gathering space, and a beautiful natural retreat which will combine beauty with function and enhance the east side of campus. This teaching garden will promote student learning, interaction, connection, reflection, artistic endeavors, and a general curiosity about nature. Consistent with the school’s commitment to sustainability, Harpeth Hall will better teach girls about the importance of caring for our environment and the critical role our land plays in our sustenance through this garden.
Teaching Kitchen
The Teaching Kitchen
Teaching Kitchen Featuring a moveable island and rolling supply carts for demonstrations and hands-on learning, this space is the perfect place for a Winterim for Adults class to take a cooking class and for students to prepare a meal for a Public Purpose project or combine ingredients for a chemistry experiment.
Makerspaces
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Imagination knows no boundaries in our four dynamic makerspaces. Designed to inspire and empower, these state-of-the-art facilities provide new ways for students to engage with a class project, learn news skills, and share their talent.
AV Production Room
AV Production Room
The AV Production Room in the Bullard Bright IDEA Lab is a space where students and teachers can create content and projects centered on audio and visual components. Examples include podcasts, interviews, music, audio dramas, short films, music videos and more! It is stocked with high-end equipment to make your project look and sound amazing. The AV Production Room is here to make your digital ideas a reality.
Podcast Studio
Green Screen
Film Studio
Editing Suite
Bullard Bright IDEA Lab Makerspace
Bullard Bright IDEA Lab Makerspace
The Bullard makerspace is an advanced woodworking focused shop equipped with professional grade tools. While focusing on woodworking the Bullard makerspace can support a variety of projects using a plethora of materials. Scale and power are what define this makerspace with upgraded versions of tools found in the Design Den. Notable examples included a 51"x36" 150w C02 laser, a large professional table saw, a lathe, jointer, and planer. Projects big and small or simple or complex can be made in the Bullard makerspace. Want to build a new kitchen table? The Bullard Makerspace can make that happen.
Table Saw
Woodworking Lathe
Laser Cutter
Power Tools
Design Den
Design Den Makerspace
Harpeth Hall's original makerspace opened its doors in 2015 and has supported 1,000s of students and teachers creative ideas. If you can can think it the Design Den can help you make it. It is our most versatile space with the ability to create anything from posters, to sock puppets, to complex 3D prints, to intricate laser engraved items, to fully powered toys, to togas, to stickers, and everything in-between. In the Design Den, girls design virtual spaces, bring engineering ideas into reality, and bridge STEM mechanics and creative thinking to create innovative projects across all disciplines. The Design Den can be whatever you need it to be and more.
Power Tools
3D Printers
Laser Cutter
Sewing Machines
Performing Arts Lab
Performing Arts Lab
The PAL (Performing Arts Lab) is a digital design and creation lab specializing in music and audio production, but capable of supporting nearly any kind of digital artistic endeavor. Equipped with five student stations and a teacher station the possibilities are endless. Each station has a dedicated MIDI keyboard, recording interface, and headphones. A team of students could simultaneously create music, graphics, edit, and record voice over for a short film or each student could edit a different section of a podcast. Each station can support microphone or instruments inputs allowing for a wide arrange of music and audio recording. One of the largest walls in the room is painted in specialty Chroma Key Green Screen paint turning the entire surface into a green screen. The PAL allows anyone to create collaboratively or work on solo projects.
Music Studio
Green Screen
Sound Mixers
Editing Suite