It’s crunch time for the students in the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences because this Saturday, May 21, 2011 is the Connecticut Student Innovation Exposition, located in the Connecticut Convention Center. “The expo is something that you look forward to throughout the year. It’s a place where you get to show off what you have learned throughout the year,” says Carlota Charles, sophomore.

This year, Bethel will be represented by the current sophomore class in the Bio21 course and the freshmen in the Earth and Energy Essentials course. Each class was asked to design a solution dealing with the theme “Moving Forward, Giving Back.” Both classes have been working diligently for the last few months doing research, designing lab experiments, and creating a presentation that will all be seen and judged this Saturday. In addition to the presentation, the EXPO required each class to create a website displaying their project.

“From the teacher’s perspective, [the EXPO project is entirely] student driven,” says Mrs. Fildes, Digital Media teacher for both classes in the Academy. “The teachers act only as supervisors, so the students take ownership of their own project.”

In the initial stages of the final EXPO project, I was elected the student leader of my class. This means that I oversaw and was involve in the entire project process. I can assure that our class has been working extremely hard in preparation for the EXPO. Our “Communications Group,” who consists of Carlota Charles and Nicole Cibu, is finalizing their unique presentation, which will hopefully impress the judges. In addition, the “Website Group”, lead by Ryan Nuzzo, just completed their finishing touches of the Bethel Bio21 Site.

Similarly to the sophomore group, freshmen are hard at work finishing their own project. Kristina Macierra, freshman, assures that although her class is “stressed,” their project is “slowly coming together.”

Sophomore Adam Chop describes the EXPO as “a bunch of kids with brilliant ideas that could be so out there they just might work.” Surprisingly, he is right.

The overwhelming nature of the EXPO is a compilation of anxiety from the presentations, creativity from the booths that represent each class, and excitement from the ‘science-loving’ children that engulf the building.

Leah Principe, sophomore, “really likes the EXPO because it makes the whole class work together in completing one big project. For instance, this year we all had separate sections of the project to complete, but in the end, we all come together and combine our information for the presentation.”