Tag Archives: tam high

Earth Day 2018

We celebrated Earth Day with a wonderful afternoon of art, music and talks about protecting our environment. Hundreds of activists, artists, environmentalists and youth gathered to pay tribute to Mother Earth at Tamalpais High School’s Student Center in Mill Valley on April 22, 2018. For a quick overview of our community celebration, watch our video slideshow (shown above).

We started the day with the first public showing of our Art Float for Social Change. This unique parade float was created by Fabrice Florin and Geo Monley with over a hundred volunteers in the Tam Makers collective, to inspire more people to participate in democracy. Pictured here is young singer Emma Spike, who performed ‘Custodians’,her original composition about climate change.

A large globe spun over a circle of hands and a carousel of art, pulled by a colorful dragon. The feathered dragon was inspired by Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of wisdom, and created by Howard Rheingold, Fabrice Florin and friends at Pataphysical Studios and Tam Makers (see photo below).

Activists of all ages stood on the decorated stage to share their ideas for a better world, including young singer Emma Spike (shown in the cover photo), Kayla Campbell, Mimi Lawrence, Eileen Fisher and more.

Many more painted original posters about the earth, which were featured on the float carousel. We are grateful to Bruce Burtch and his team at Youth Poster Contest (he is pictured below), for working with our volunteers Sarah Acker and Vanitha Sampath to coach young people in this art activity.

Dozens of environmental partners showed participants how we can all take action to reverse global warming — organizations like the Drawdown Marin (pictured above), Sierra Club, Resilient Neighborhoods and 350 Marin, to name but a few.

Our guest speakers were Mark Squire from Good Earth, Crystal Chissel from Project Drawdown, Marin Supervisor Damon Connolly and young local activists: they gave informative talks on a wide range of solutions to curb climate change.

Participants also learned to plant a veggie garden, ride an electric bike, while others registered to vote (we helped 5 teenagers pre-register to vote at this event) .

We ended the day with music performances by the charming Twinkling Stars of Singers Marin, led by Dana Cherry (pictured above), as well as young singer Emma Spike (see cover photo).

Music director Reed Fromer (pictured above) led moving sing-alongs with the Freedom Singers and Mill Valley Seniors for Peace (see photo below).

Earth Day 2008 brought together diverse groups of people who might not have connected otherwise: activists, artists, environmentalists, makers, children, teenagers, teachers and parents. We are particularly grateful to all the young activists who participated in our celebration, including Jackson Darby, Ben Kanter, Jillian Hickey and Elly Blatcher (pictured below with their ‘Don’t Bug Me’ exhibit) and their teacher Joanna Saunders from the Marin School of Environmental Leadership .

This community gathering was produced by Democracy Cafe, Eco Warriors of MVCAN and Tam Makers, with the generous support of Tamalpais High School, Mill Valley Community Action Network (MVCAN), Good Earth, Driver’s Market, Sloat Garden Supply and all our gracious partners, who are listed below.

Thanks to event organizers Fabrice Florin, Marilyn Price, Jennifer Tomkins, Geo Monley, Carol Korenbrot, Elspeth Martin, Grace Severtson, Laurie Riley — and all the wonderful volunteers who helped produce this inspiring event.

Special thanks to the photographers who took the pictures featured on this page: Bruce Burtch, Fabrice Florin, Bill Jensen, Howard Rheingold, Grace Severtson, Jenny Tomkins and Martha Ture (and to the videographers whose work will soon appear above: David Donnenfield, Tim Pozar, Bob Harlow and Chris Scofield). View more of their work on our Earth Day photo album. 

We think making art, playing music and talking with people of all ages and backgrounds can build mutual understanding and get us all more engaged as citizens. Join your neighbors to make political art and music, and take action together to create a better world!

To see more images of our Art Float in action, visit our photo album on Flickr and/or our favorite photos on Facebook. To see how we are building it, take a look at our Art Float Creation photos. Once you see how much fun everyone is having on this project, sign up here and join us!

Join us on Memorial Day

You and your friends are welcome to march with our Art Float for Social Change at the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade on May 28, 2018, 10am-1pm, with members of the Tam High community and the Mill Valley Community Action Network. Please RSVP here to save your spot.

Make a Donation

Would you like to help pay for the Art Float, so we can finish it this spring? Please make a donation on our Memorial Day page, even if you’re not coming to that event. Thank you!

Visit our Partners

Please visit our partner and sponsor sites, and sign up for their projects, if they appeal to you.

Organizers:

Sponsors:

Presenters:

Partners:

Update – Survey Results

After the event, we invited participants to give us feedback through an online survey that received 48 responses. People told us they really enjoyed this event, its creative energy, and the combination of entertainment, information and community.

Survey responses show they liked the art, music and meeting people the most, and also liked the partner tables and speakers. The majority of participants thought the event helped build a community of activists, promoted environmental causes, welcomed young people as citizens and helped each of us take action. 

So this mix of art, information and personal connections seems really effective for stimulating personal and collective climate action. Kudos to our lead partners Eco Warriors of MVCAN, Good Earth, Tam Makers and Tamalpais High School for making this wonderful event possible!

Introducing Tam Makers

Tam Makers is a community of makers, teachers and students in Marin County. We build things together and offer courses, meetups and a makerspace at Tam High School in Mill Valley. To learn more, visit http://tammakers.org

We are starting Tam Makers, a new makerspace in Marin — and invite you to come visit, if you are in the area.

We offer courses for adults and teens, meetups and a new makerspace at Tamalpais High School, in our state-of-the-art wood shop and computer lab.

We created this community center to serve the needs of our local community, whether you are interested in making things for yourself or supporting a makerspace for your children.

Join our meetups

If you live in our area, come to one of our free meetups, so we can tell you more, hear what you think and plan our next steps together. Our monthly meetups are listed here and run from 6 to 8pm in our makerspace at Tam High School (see address below). Adults and teens welcome. If you missed our last meetup, here are photos and slides of this event, as well as the video of our presentation and group discussion.

Sign up for classes

This year, we are offering a wide range of classes for adults and youth: from Arduino to laser cutting, hand tools, wood turning and how to make elegant boxes, to name but a few.

Learn more in our Classes page, where you can sign up for these classes before they fill up.

All adult classes start at 6pm. Teens can also sign up for these classes, with the help of an adult.

Visit our makerspace

All events are at Tamalpais High School, in our state-of-the-art wood shop and computer lab: 700 Miller Avenue (Room 416), Mill Valley, CA 94941. See map.

The best times to visit our makerspace are during our free meetups (see above). To get a feel for our space and community, check out the Tam Makers Photo Album.

Meet our team

Organizers include: Geo Monley, Fabrice Florin, Howard Rheingold and our maker friends, with the Tam High School District’s Community Ed program.

We are developing this program to build fun maker projects with our community and learn from each other.

For more information, visit tammakers.org . To get our newsletters, subscribe to our mailing list. You can also email us at info@tammakers.org .

We hope you will join us. We invite you to share this page with friends and neighbors.

See you soon!

This post was updated on August 6, 2016 to introduce new classes and meetups.

Maker Art: Build a City of the Future

What will life be like in the 22nd century? Help dream up a better world and build a City of the Future. Art by Boombastik3 via Deviant Art.

Create a city of the future in this cool after-school activity.
Future Art by Boombastik3, CC-BY-NC-SA.

Update: This spring, we created a city of the future with lower and middle school children, ages 7-14.

We invited them to imagine what the world will be like in 100 years, combining art, technology and storytelling to express themselves and develop new skills.

We taught this after-school ‘maker art’ class in two different schools:

Children were deeply engaged by this hands-on, project-based, student-driven, collaborative activity. We think this ‘maker art’ program is a great way to learn by doing, and we would like to offer it to more children and educational partners.

Here’s our original overview for this fun and educational after-school activity.

What is it?

Create a city of the future with arts and electronics!

In this maker art course, you will build a cool model of what our world could be like in 100 years. You will first make a futuristic home with a cardboard ‘wonderbox’ and an animated character. You will then bring it to life by making your character move, lights blink and sounds play.

Next, you will assemble your boxes into a small city of the future, and landscape it together. At the end of the course, we will make a short video of your creations — and you get to keep your box when the course ends.

Who is it for?

This after-school course is for middle-school students, ages 10 to 14 (6th to 9th grades). No experience necessary!

What will students learn?

Our classes combine art and technology to help you develop a range of skills: science, technology, engineering, art and math skills (STEAM); creative expression and communication skills.

You will create your own interactive art, in a playful way that makes learning more fun. You will also collaborate with other students to build something greater than you could do on your own.

When is it?

During our spring course, we meet every Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:30pm at Tam High School’s wood shop in Mill Valley. This 2-hour class runs for 8 weeks, from March 30 to May 25, 2016.

What will it look like?

Here is a first example of what our city of the future could look like.

The City of the Future will include a row of 'wonderbox' homes in the foreground, and a city landscape in the background. It will be about 6 feet wide, 3 feet deep and up to 4 feet high, and be placed on a rolling 'maker art cart.'

This 3D model shows a first visualization for our city of the future, to be designed with our students.
Created by Fabrice Florin with Sketchup, CC-BY-SA.

Our city of the future will include a row of ‘wonderbox’ homes in the foreground, and a city landscape in the background. The model will be about 6 feet wide, 3 feet deep and up to 4 feet high, and be showcased on a ‘maker art cart’. See our course slides for more images.

Who is teaching this?

Fabrice Florin is teaching this course with Geo Monley, Cynthia Gilbert and other art makers.

As a multimedia innovator, Fabrice has led the development of many pioneering products in education, news and entertainment, working with Apple, Macromedia, Wikipedia and other digital media groups. He is a lead designer at Pataphysical Studios and is teaching several maker art courses in the Bay Area.

The Tam High course for middle school children is hosted by Chris McCune and Betty Sue Johnson at Tam District Community Education. Advisors include Jean Bolte, Tara Brown, Donald Day, Dale Dougherty, Phyllis Florin, Natalina Frederick, Cynthia Gilbert, Howard Rheingold and our art maker community. We’re grateful to them all for making this course possible!

Will you teach more courses?

Yes! We will also teach a week-long ‘maker camp’ the week of July 11, every weekday from 9am to 1pm: in this camp, we will learn to program Arduino boards to build our city of the future.

Sign up here for this summer camp.
Tuition: $325 per student. Materials and Arduino board included.

How can I learn more?

You can learn more about this project in this course overview — and read about our other ‘maker art‘ courses in 2016.

For our spring courses, you can track our progress in each school here:

If you have any questions, you’re welcome to email me — and we invite you to spread the word in your community.

We look forward to coaching more children to become art makers!

Fabrice