Animation at Talahi Community School

For three weeks in the winter of 2016, I did a residency at Talahi Community School in St. Cloud, MN through COMPAS. I worked with all seven fourth and fifth grade classes, around 175 students in all, and we investigated stop motion animation to see what it could teach us about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). We made some shorts called "Strange Science," where we broke the laws of physics. The students designed, built and animated machines that could perform a task. The fifth grade classes created transforming geometric shapes. And each class spent a week coming up with a story, building all the characters and props needed for it, animating it, and coming up with the soundtrack. This program was funded by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Here is a documentary I made about the residency and some of the films created by the students.