WHS Learning Commons
Classes, creative experiences, and collaborative possibilities for WHS teachers and students.
Choose a ready-to-go introduction, bring a class for a creative experience, or work with the library to build something larger. Every offering can be adapted to your course, grade level, goals, and schedule.
Start with booking a class in the Library
The Learning Commons can offer a focused introduction, a quick tour, a hands-on demonstration, or a custom session built around what students are already learning.
Introduction to Library Resources
A practical orientation to print and digital resources, databases, research support, and Learning Commons spaces.
Makerspace & CTC Tour
Explore equipment, project possibilities, expectations, and ways the space can support classroom learning.
CTC Equipment Demonstrations
Laser cutting, vinyl cutting, sublimation, embroidery, button making, the sound studio, and more.
Plan a Custom Library Session
Combine research, making, media, discussion, exhibition, or community expertise around a unit or challenge.
Must speak with Ms. Z ahead of time so she can prepare the stations.
Small invitations to make, build, play, and reset.
Passive activities offer students an accessible way to engage with the Learning Commons.
LEGO Builds
Open-ended building and design challenges.
Games
Board, card, and collaborative games.
Friendship Bracelets
A social, portable making activity.
Coloring / Paint by Numbers
Quiet creative reset and mindful focus.
Straw Builds
Fast engineering and teamwork challenges.
Knitting & Crocheting
Beginner-friendly fiber arts and practice.
Button Making
Design and press custom wearable art.
Your Idea / Talent / Skill Share
Bring something you know how to do.
CTC Tools
Explore the tools and creative technologies available in the Creative Technology Center.
Vinyl Cutter
Create decals, labels, signs, stickers, and custom designs.
Laser Cutter
Cut and engrave materials to create prototypes, artwork, models, and signs.
3D Printer
Turn digital designs into physical models, prototypes, and creative projects.
Heat Press
Transfer designs onto shirts, fabric, and other materials.
Sublimation Printer
Create vibrant designs for sublimation projects and custom products.
Music Studio
Record, produce, mix, and experiment with sound and music.
Green Screen
Create videos, presentations, and visual effects using green-screen technology.
Cameras
Capture photography and video for projects, performances, and storytelling.
Microphones
Record clear audio for podcasts, interviews, music, and video projects.
Lighting
Shape the look and atmosphere of photography, video, and performances.
Old Tech
Explore vintage technology and use it as inspiration for creative projects.
Adobe Creative Suite
Design, edit, illustrate, and create with professional creative software.
Resolume
Create and perform visual media for live events and installations.
Ableton Live
Create, record, arrange, and perform music and audio.
Isadora
Experiment with interactive media, video, sound, and performance technology.
Collaboration between the library and classroom teachers
An interactive gallery built from research and technical work.
Students can combine archival documents, models, engineering drawings, audio, video, data, prototypes, and hands-on demonstrations. The school community is invited to visit, ask questions, and experience the work. Community partnerships: U.S. Navy Academy, NASA.
What the Library Can Add
Planning & Co-design
Support for the project, timeline, and public-facing experience.
Primary-source Research
Guidance on selecting, citing, and interpreting artifacts.
Gallery & Curation
Layout, labels, display elements, and interactive components.
Makerspace Tools
Prototypes, models, signage, audio, video, and installation pieces.
Audience & Events
Promotion, opening events, guest participation, and opportunities for a schoolwide audience.
Ideas
These are starting points—not prescriptions. Each could become a gallery, archive, performance, installation, workshop, or public conversation.
World Mythology
Archetypes, artifacts, maps, retellings, and student-created objects.
Ellis Island & Immigration
Oral histories, passenger records, maps, photographs, family stories, and student interpretation.
Women’s History Month
A living archive of local, national, and global stories through research, media, and public programs.
Local History & Civic Memory
Partner with community organizations to surface overlooked people, places, and stories.
Climate & Environmental Change
Turn data, fieldwork, prototypes, and policy questions into an interactive public exhibition.
Literature Brought to Life
Transform a text into a multisensory world through sound, objects, visual interpretation, and performance.
Public Health & Community Well-Being
Connect science, statistics, lived experience, advocacy, and local expertise.
Art Meets Engineering
Explore how design and story meet in monuments, products, and public spaces.
Local professionals available to present at WHS this year
Local professionals have offered to share their experience, careers, creative practices, and expertise with WHS students.
Teri Cote and Her Husband
Teri reached out about visiting WHS with her husband, a professional musician and professor at Berklee College of Music. They are interested in sharing their experiences as professional artists and entrepreneurs and talking with students about careers in music and the arts.
Eric Garibaldi
A Winchester-based professional guitarist who has taught at Stage Music Center for the past ten years and performs full-time with a range of groups. He is interested in developing a lecture, workshop, or master class for musicians and non-musicians.
Alena Curry
Alena has offered to present on endometriosis, including the condition, its impact on women, and her experience advocating for greater awareness and education.
Albert Pless
Albert works in equity and social justice and has a background in local public health work in Boston and Cambridge. His interactive, discussion-based workshops are generally about 45 minutes and can be tailored to student interests.
Jessica Brill
Director of Digital & Growth Marketing at Logitech. Workshop topics include audience and targeting, content and messaging, distribution channels, a Logitech case study, and a hands-on short-form video activity.
Toni Snyder
Background as an interior designer/colorist and willing to lead a workshop on creative careers.
Have a community connection to share?
The library welcomes introductions to artists, scholars, tradespeople, entrepreneurs, advocates, civic leaders, alumni, and others whose experience could enrich student learning.
What should we
serve next?
Mark the ideas you would attend, support, or bring to your students.
Request a Library Collaboration
Interested in a library class, makerspace demonstration, passive activity, thematic collaboration, guest speaker, community partner, or Collaboration Room / gallery space? Contact Ms. Zampitella to plan or book.