School Partnerships
Since 2012, our School Partnerships have transformed classrooms into workshops for ambitious hands-on, multi-disciplinary project-making. Beam projects create a dynamic environment where students can imagine, design, build and engage deeply with academic subjects including biology, history, writing, geometry, storytelling and many more.
We’ve supported schools in crafting spaces for collaborative engagement through hands-on skills, subject relevance, future path exploration, language literacy and community-facing design, that foster an intentionally rigorous and joyous education journey for youth and teachers alike to learn and be inspired by.
We offer three connected ways of engaging that can and have successfully been integrated across more than 40+ schools across all 5 New York City boroughs.
Teacher Professional Development
In-school Project Implementation
Long Term School Partnerships
How Our Robust School Partnerships Work:
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We ensure that our partner teachers are well equipped to teach our curricula and the projects we design in collaboration with them, and give them the tools to adapt to what works best for their instructional objectives. We train teachers to feel confident in teaching something new and unfamiliar, modeling for youth the confidence to be challenge-resilient and learn individually and as a group.
1. Teacher Professional Development
Teachers! We approach our partnerships with youth in mind by empowering you to bring your passion and expertise to implement ambitious projects into your classrooms. Our PD sessions aren’t like any others—for us PDs stand for Project Design sessions, where we:
Integrate academic curricula into ambitious project ideas that contribute to classroom and school community objectives
Develop a project tool, material and space needs that Beam will supply
Offer skillbuilding on tools and equipment to empower you and your students to take ownership over the unfamiliar
Establish our robust support for you from the very beginning stages of design & skill-building
Inspire you to harness your own creativity through ideation and relationship-building with our staff via collaborative project planning
2. In-school Project Implementation
Beam Center Project Designers co-lead with you to make sure the project is fulfilling and successful by aligning with your academic goals by transforming spaces for all youth to learn and be inspired by.
We understand application versus ideation can be overwhelming. Our Beam Center Project Designers are there in schools partnering and supporting you during the implementation phases of projects.
We encourage you to continue collaborating with our Project Designers throughout the project to help manage youth’s needs, proactively adjust project plans, and have the support to integrate project-based learning into your teaching practice.
After more than 300 projects designed and implemented, we believe we are your partners in inspiring young people to have agency.
3. Long Term School Partnerships
With more than 16,000 youth served in 40+ NYC public schools, Beam Center has been able to strengthen these relationships over time and build trust between us and your school communities through iterative yearly project making through in-school and after school programs. We’ve created projects ranging in scale from large full-grade model coliseums or indoor hydroponic gardens, to smaller group class projects that allow for more freedom in design and expression, or even our community facing work-based learning experiences like Fish Parade at Bronx International High School, all based on the schools and their needs.
The variety of our projects shows Beam Center’s adaptability and care in uplifting youth, offering new ways of learning, and transforming minds.
STEM and Art-base Literacy Curriculum for English Language Learners
Connected Worlds is an in-school, after school, and Summer Rising-embedded English Language Literacy program that improves English proficiency through imaginative, confidence-building STE(A)M learning.
Focusing on grades 3-8, we create projects alongside youth that combine storytelling, electronic circuits, painting and drawing, sculptural techniques using paper, clay, and fabric to tell their stories.
Since 2023 close to 2,000+ Emerging English Language Learners in 3rd to 8th grade have designed and created new worlds while acquiring English Literacy skills! Each moment of every Connected World project is a reminder that with communication, community, and curiosity anything is possible.
School Partnership Case Studies:
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Elementary & Middle school: Joseph Lanzetta (P.S. 96)
At Joseph Lanzetta (P.S. 96) located in East Harlem, elementary and middle school students have utilized their creative minds to design and build a “dream space” using primarily cardboard, craft materials, and found objects. These dream spaces can be anything from a bedroom to a garden to a sports arena.
Students also learned about and implemented simple circuitry such as lighting and movement using motors into their spaces. This project (now in its second year) came about two teachers wanting to carry out a hands-on project in their classroom.
While participating in a series of professional developments at the Beam Center, they were introduced to the world of electricity. They learned the basics on how to build a circuit such as how to turn on an LED using a battery—and later how to wire 10 of them! This experience led them to want to incorporate technology into the project we would soon develop.
Although our partnership is fairly recent, our presence within the school has grown immensely. This year, Beam Center has started an afterschool program dubbed “Beam Team.” It is a STEAM based afterschool program that also focuses on English literacy development for the many ELL participants in the school.
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ELementary school: PS 938
At PS 938 we facilitate and design STEAM focused projects that align with the elementary school’s Wit + Wisdom curriculum. Each unit explores a different theme where students get to engineer and build a 3D model related to the curriculum.
The 4th grade class learned about the adventure of our blood in the circulatory system so we made anatomical hearts and created a blood experiment using oil and water. Dressed in scrubs and plastic gloves, the students got to practice being doctors with syringes and pipettes as the final celebration for this science unit.
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High School: Bronx High School
At Bronx Arena High School, Lisa and Serena developed a workshop series as a part of Lisa’s art class. As a transfer school, Bronx Arena and the students who attend are able to take classes based on the credits they have available and where they choose to apply them. To fit this model, we envisioned a workshop where students could attend anywhere from a single session to the full series to engage them in a short, skill-based series that they could expand further if they have more art credits or that they could revisit at a later point in life!
In 2024 we began with oil painting where students learned how to create different colors, paint from a photograph and develop a composition.
In 2025 we created a printmaking workshop where students learned skills in linocut printing, gelli printing and screen printing. They’ve been developing these skills even after the series was complete by teaching each other and continuing to make unique designs!
After each series was completed, Lisa worked to embed them in her curriculum for future years and to allow for us to continue bringing new skills to the students.
Want to make a Beam Project at home?
Start your own Beam Center inspired project!
Beam DIY Projects are great for young people to participate in self-directed learning and making inspired by our previous in-school projects created.
Become a Beam School Partner
Partner with us! Have you filled out our survey?
Please read about the full scope of Beam School Partnerships offerings, on this page, before submitting your inquiry.
Reach out to Jeff Wood for more information: jeff@beamcenter.org
