Forest Glass made by Katherine Gray

This is the Forest Glass made by Katherine Gray. This is a tree made of only ordinary drinking glasses. They resemble a treewhen you view them from a distance. Katherine Gray was a skilled glass blower and she could have made all of the parts herself.  She insisted on using glass that was already there; she didn't want to be wasteful.This was her effort to conserve glass.

One of the destinations for our immersion was the Herschell Carrousel Museum. At this museum, we looked at how carrousels used to be made. They used to be made out of real wood and were hand carved. Now carrousel horses are made of fiberglass with molds. Herschell was one of the largest carrousel producers in the country, and the factory is in Tonawanda, NY. The carrousel you see us riding on was a very old carrousel, and all of the horses were made of real wood. Look how creative all of those horses are!

Strong National Museum of Play

You are never too old to have fun! On Thursday, April 7th, our Immersion group visited the Strong National Museum of Play, located in Rochester, New York. With over 150,000 square feet of space, the Strong Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of toys, dolls, games, and other items that celebrate play. Strong also offers a wide variety of family friendly games, activities, and services, such as summer camps, school eating areas, and age specific playing areas. Some of the exhibits that they offer include a Butterfly and Discovery Garden, Sesame Street and Berenstain Bears play land, Reading adventure land, American Comic Book Heros, Toy Hall of Fame, Coral Reef Aquarium, Strong Express Train, rides on an original Herschel Carrousel, and shopping at a mini sized “Wegman’s” complete with “W-Kids” and functional cash registers.

Although “playing” might not be what most 7th and 8th graders are into these days, the creative individuals in our Immersion group kept our selves occupied and happy the entire day with our favorite activities including:

Meghan: Mini Wegman’s
Zach: Zero-Gravity House
Jasmine: “Old Fashioned” Arcade
Mia: Virtual Racecar Driving
Anna: Flashing Game Floor
Nico: Super Hero Wall Scaling
Seychelle: Dance Lab
Naomi: Life Sized Kaleidoscope
Trevor: Rope and Ball Pulley Systems

The thoughts on the museum were unanimous “When are we coming back!”

I really enjoyed the Corning Guseum of glass. Some of my favorite things to do were blowing glass eggs, watching the glass breaking demo and going through the exhibits. Some of my favorite glass designs were the glass baseball bat, the huge pieces of fruit, and the glass cups that were arranged to look like a tree. The Corning Museum of Glass was one of the best museums I have ever been to. I would definitely go again with my family because it was that marvelous.

Herschell Carrousel Museum

On Wednesday we went to the Herschell Carrousel Museum. We got to make tulips out of tissue paper and do a scavenger hunt to look for information on carrousels. We learned about how carrousels started and how they were made, and we got to play games. We got to ride on a carrousel, twice! That was really fun. I had a great time there, and I hope to go again.

Glass Breaking Demo at Corning

Going round and round

Going Up and Down

Riding on the Carrousel

On the Carrousel

And another egg.....

Another egg is being created.

Glassblowing

Each student had the opportunity to create a glassblown egg.

Flamework pendant

One of our students drew a design that was chosen for the flameworking demo. She is having it mailed to her home so perhaps you can see it.

A beautiful dress made out of glass!

Glass breaking demo

The glass breaking demo showed us the different types of glass that they use in diferent modern devices such as cars. There is non annealed glass. Glass that is two pieces of glass fused together with a plate of hard plastic in the center is called safety glass.  It is slightly bullet proof. There is a third kind of glass that has to have a sharp concentrated impact to break.  There was a machine that showed the pressure in the plastic of a cd case. There was also a  glass egg which could not be broken from the outside but can easily be broken from the inside. One of the Park immersion students had the pleasure of going up onstage and breaking the glass!



This is us at the Jell-O Museum in Leroy, NY.

Creativity in WNY

Every year at The Park School, we have a program called Immersion.
This Immersion is called Creativity in WNY. We have 10 people in our group, so we are able to do  things that WE want, and WE decide are creative. What we do doesn't have to be an artsy creativity, but it could be other things like science. We can drive anywhere in Western New York to do a creative activity. We usually have lunch out on the road. We only go to creative reasturants, nothing boring like fast food. What do you think about creativity?