The Holley High School Humanities Class presented innovations to a community board made up of Holley faculty, staff, administration and a board member on January 22. Each student gave a PowerPoint presentation on his/her idea, which ranged from obtaining the perfect manicure at home to creating a turbo charger for cars to use fuel more efficiently.
Students researched how to market and price their innovations, what materials they would require for development, the effect their innovations would have on the job market, and what changes would need to take place in the environment, government or social systems to make their innovations a reality.
In one student’s case, he wanted to make everyone’s living environment a virtual reality; for example, he proposed owning a virtual pet without having all the responsibilities that pet ownership entails (food, exercise, training, medical care, etc.).
Many ideas seemed possible to implement in the near future. For example, during the holiday season, a local mall could adopt the idea to string lights above parking spaces that would be activated by a weight and motion sensor to indicate through a color system which spaces were occupied, available or had cars exiting.
The idea to run a bakery that incorporates medical marijuana into baked goods for those who have a prescription for it might not be too far off, in light of Rochester opening its first medical marijuana clinic recently.
Some more ambitious ideas would take longer to implement, such as building an international space station for anyone to learn about space and devising a filtration device to remove greenhouse gases from the environment.
Other ideas fell in the middle, with the idea to offer mental health services to convicted prisoners while they serve their sentences; requiring a lot of political and social change, and developing the right product to harness solar power to charge cell phones while holding it, requiring scientific experimentation.
Some ideas are already in use, such as using a phone app to wirelessly charge devices or inserting a noise blocker in one’s ear to avoid unwanted noises, but they just require fine-tuning through the use of new technology to achieve students’ desired results.
The Humanities class created the “Innovation Forum” to mark the end of the first semester for this new course offered jointly by the Social Studies and English departments at Holley.
Teachers Mike Crissman and Suzanne Lepkowski taught the class of 14 students. They broke the semester into three segments, with students examining the past, present and future of how the human race and social culture have evolved. They offer a Humanities II class in the second semester that has about 12 students enrolled.
“The students have really shaped the class and what we cover each semester,” said Lepkowski. “We have had some great discussions in class and we’ve investigated subjects that the students wanted to learn more about. The class has formed their own culture and they are very protective and supportive of each other, which is nice to see.”
The class also incorporated a community service event into the first semester. In December, they hosted a holiday photo session, where the class took holiday photos of local families and offered refreshments. They accepted donations of new toys for the Gary the Happy Pirate Toy Fund and non-perishable food items and cash donations for the community center.
The students have started discussing what they would like to offer the community in the second semester.
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