After completing a unit about the 1920s and reading The Great Gatsby in Humanities, the 2020 sophomores were asked to curate projects regarding the evolution of paradigm shifts from the 1920s to 2020. These projects were presented at the Bruce Museum in February of that year.
Remy’s project on the expansion of the film industry and changes in how the world consumes media
Angie’s project on breaking down barriers and promoting self-expression through music
Richa’s project on Georgia O’Keeffe and today’s backlash against the feminist movement
Carolina’s project on changes in medicine and the mistrust of doctors
Demi’s project on Disney and the film industry
An Array of Modernism Projects
In 2016, Humanities students were asked to create projects that symbolically represented their understanding of Modernism. According to one definition, “Modernism was a philosophical and artistic movement of the early 20th century which portrayed the world of men as a harsh, hostile environment in which life had lost its meaning and men and women were isolated from each other, struggling to survive alone.” Like the Modernist characters in literature who are on a quest to either understand themselves or to recreate themselves into something different than who they were born, InLab students are on a quest to understand and embrace change.
Students were invited to design their own projects in any medium. We had artists, musicians, computer programmers, and designers. With very few limits on their expression and two months to work outside of school, many students exceeded expectations.
Siobhan’s Tree of Life represents that the modern has roots in tradition. She demonstrated those changes by comparing statistics and facts from 1913 to 2013 on each leaf and used real bark on her tree.
Resident poets, Juliana and Kathryn, completed extensive research on poetry from the era and captured the voices of conflict and change in powerful and haunting ways.
While Jari and Pierce returned to their love of music to write original scores.
Other students embarked on new challenges. Sofia tried her hand at painting and a multimedia triptych representing the trenches of WW1, the 1920s of Gatsby’s world, and the 1930s Dust Bowl. 
GHS Innovation Lab 