St. Thomas’ Playful Learning Lab premiered its new educational website, OK Go Sandbox, as part of its collaboration with the rock band OK Go on Thursday, March 15 at the National Science Teacher Association conference in Georgia.
Professor AnnMarie Thomas created Playful Learning Lab as a student research program that experiments different ways STEM can be applied to various forms of art such as music.
OK Go, a rock band from Chicago, Illinois, combines math, science and art into its music videos. Teachers from all around the world have reached out to the band telling them how they use their music videos to explain fundamentals of math and science within their classrooms.
“It’s just a fun way to teach those things,” said Paige Huschka, OK Go Sandbox project manager and St. Thomas sophomore. “The videos are really funny. The band is really charismatic. The kids get a kick out of it and the music I think is a really good way to engage students.”
Thomas ran into lead singer Damian Kulash at a TED conference in Vancouver, Canada in April 2017 where she pitched the idea of starting a collaboration, according to OK Go bassist Tim Nordwind.
Kulash mentioned to Thomas that he wanted to get more involved with education, according to St. Thomas freshman Rachel Farah, who is a part of the OK Go Sandbox project.
“During that conversation was born this idea of if teachers are using our videos, how can we help?” Nordwind said.
Thomas and Kulash began planning how Playful Learning Lab could help provide the materials needed to further teachers’ educational use of the band’s videos.
Almost a year later, the OK Go Sandbox website was released with the help of eight St. Thomas undergraduates.
“OK Go Sandbox is an online platform that provides the resource for educators to teach their students about science concepts that they already have to teach in a way different way with a rock band and music,” Huschka said.
Playful Learning Lab helps the band by creating the activities related to their videos for teachers to use in their classrooms.
The website premiered at the National Science Teacher Association conference in Georgia, which ran from Wednesday, March 14 through Sunday, March 18.
“A bunch of science teachers get together and there are different booths you can go to to present different materials or ways to teach materials, different resources, things like that. So, basically heaven for science teachers,” Huschka said.
Not only is the St. Thomas research group collaborating with a famous rock band, but the project itself is sponsored by Google.
“I know that AnnMarie has connections to literally everyone,” Huschka said. “AnnMarie got in touch with (Google) and pitched the idea, and from then on Google was interested.”
Now that the project with OK Go is running, Nordwind says he is curious to see how the first round goes.
“I’m hoping that kids will get excited by these videos and I’m hoping that these tools can act as a way in for students who maybe don’t find math or science that exciting,” Nordwind said.
“There’s a ton of possibilities for (OK Go sandbox),” Nordwind said. “We’ve really just started to scratch the surface.”
Althea Larson can be reached at lars2360@stthomas.edu.