High school renovations, new studio programs give students hands-on experience with AI, robotics and real-world career skills
Students encased in glass-walled rooms scribble math equations on whiteboards. Their peers pitch product proposals to business leaders as the whir of drones weaving about a nearby robotics lab fills the air.
This isn’t a glimpse into the future of education. It’s a look inside Western Pennsylvania’s modern-day education landscape, evolving to meet ever-changing workforce demands.
It’s also the level of innovation Hempfield Area social studies teacher Brady Adamson expects to see in the district’s $119 million high school renovation.
By June 2029, the target completion date for the renovation, Adamson hopes the high school supports his students as much as the building upgrade at his alma mater — Penn-Trafford — benefited him 10 years ago.
“I just, at the end, want this to be as transformational as the P-T renovation was for me when I was a 15-year-old kid,” he said.
When Adamson started at Penn-Trafford High School as a freshman in 2016, the district had just completed a three-year, $32 million renovation. Crews installed additional classrooms for the high school’s STEM and video courses, and the library was transformed into a media center housing books, computers, makerspace equipment and spaces for students to collaborate on projects.
Adamson particularly appreciated the addition of “fishbowl” rooms, conference room-style spaces enclosed with glass walls.
“I spent so much time there as a high school student, just whiteboarding stuff, working things out with (classmates),” he said. “Having those opportunities, having those spaces to do that, was such a big deal.”
Launching regional innovation
Tyler Samstag, executive director of Homestead-based Remake Learning, has watched schools throughout Western Pennsylvania practice innovation in school designs and teaching approaches since the organization’s founding in 2007 — the year the first iPhone was released.
That year, teachers nationwide grappled with how up-and-coming technologies would impact education, Samstag said.
“It’s really interesting,” he said, “because here we are 20 years later, and we’re in very similar circumstances with things like AI.”
As technologies such as AI evolve, schools need to reevaluate how they are preparing students to enter a changing workforce, Samstag said.
“If we want to prepare young people to be successful when they leave school, we have to continuously be evolving what students are learning, how students are learning and the skills that are most important that we’re teaching in schools,” he said. “And so in that sense, I think (innovation) is very important, and I think (in) Pittsburgh, that innovation is all around us.”
Innovation lies at the heart of Remake Learning’s mission, Samstag said.
The organization partners with school districts to host Remake Learning Days, festivals dedicated to hands-on learning. Since 2021, Remake Learning has given about $5.7 million to help roughly 120 Western Pennsylvania educators enact innovative programs, he said.
Thirty-six of those educators will finalize their projects this month, Samstag said.
Avonworth will launch an aerospace learning lab for students interested in aviation careers. West Allegheny is starting an artificial intelligence creation project in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, where students will be tasked with generating AI-powered solutions to address problems in their school.
And Clairton City’s entrepreneurship program will place students in small-scale, simulated communities where they will put their in-class learning into practice by operating businesses, governments and services.