Learning and Research Centers
The Future of Innovation in Education
Sedona, AZ
The Future of Innovation in Education
The Verde Valley School Learning and Research Centers
Verde Valley School (VVS) continues to pave the way for the future of innovation in education, a familiar path for VVS from our founding in 1946, as the school was conceived around visionary, global and inspired experiential education.
Young people are called to rise to greater accomplishments in critical areas that address the world’s most pressing problems – to be the changemakers – the thought leaders of the future. You have an opportunity to join us in making a tremendous impact in their education with the formation of the Verde Valley School Learning and Research Centers.
We stand at a pivotal moment to activate three beautiful, but unfinished, buildings on the VVS campus that will serve as an expansion of the VVS mission through innovative learning clusters. These inspiring platforms will prepare young people for the future in new classrooms and state-of-the-art facilities with multi-purpose capabilities.
The three academic clusters assigned to a specific building include: expanded STEM focused programs - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math - that are key to investigative thinking and interrogative thought, LANGUAGES that facilitate the ability to share those discoveries globally, and SUSTAINABILITY to have a lasting impact for healthy communities through design thinking.
This central role we play in young people’s lives positions them for their academic futures and resolutely situates them to live lives filled with fearless inquiry, caring for the people and places around them.
Be a partner with us as we have this rare opportunity to be changemakers – visionaries – who will make a difference in this innovative educational framework that rises to meet the demands the world has placed on our youth.
The STEM Center
Science oriented teaching cannot afford to languish in spaces comfortable with status quo. Science by its nature is propelled forward everyday by discoveries, inventions, curiosities, and a view to the future of what humanity is exploring – what humanity is needing –indeed where humanity is heading. VVS faculty are prepared to be those navigators, and the new STEM Center will provide access and tools to elevate the Science Programs with new classrooms, new lab and programming opportunities that will bring experts and practitioners to be in residence throughout the year to teach alongside faculty, present content to VVS students and bridge our programs to non-VVS students in our area as well as lifelong adult learners.
The STEM Center at VVS is designed to captivate young people who will move the needle and capture the essence of the unknown. As our mission states: Verde Valley School educates students for college and for life by encouraging them to become intellectually curious, academically accomplished and creatively expressive.
The VVS STEM Center will take its place in the educational vanguard creating engaging science experiences that foster communities where people value STEM to inform decision-making and to enrich lives.
*Please note these renderings do not represent the final project and are intended to illustrate scope of work.
The Center for Global Languages
From its inception, Verde Valley School has been inspired by the urgency for young people to learn languages to be effective global communicators. This ability to convey ideas in multiple languages is essential and is paired with developing intercultural competencies. Intercultural competence involves a meta-ability to recognize and analyze patterns and relationships across diverse contexts. High school aged youth are ready for these clusters as part of their world-thinking.
The renowned linguist, Kenneth L. Hale, PhD, a VVS alum, known for his devotion to preserving Native cultures and understanding the commonalities in human speech resulted in a legendary prowess with languages. He spoke more than 50 languages. He taught and led research at MIT in linguistics for three decades. His friend, Noam Chomsky, called him, “… the voice of the voiceless and one of the world’s leading scholars.” This is the legacy we build upon.
The new Center for Global Languages will provide access and tools to bring the world’s languages to VVS with new classrooms, a language lab and programming opportunities that will bring experts and practitioners to be in residence throughout the year to teach alongside faculty, present content to VVS students and bridge our programs to non-VVS students in our area as well as lifelong adult learners.
A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It’s all embodied in a language.
Noam Chomsky
The Center for Sustainable Design and Wellness
The Center for Sustainable Design and Wellness challenges conventional ideas about architecture and the built environment. We can reimagine cities and places that make a difference in people’s lives – places that build communities and are designed for a greener world. We can consider ways to make food secure and lessen housing insecurity that creates a better world through the power of design thinking.
VVS has always embraced key tenets that include intercultural understanding and world citizenship, environmental stewardship, the value of physical labor, and service to humanity with a willing spirit. That is the foundational architecture of this new Center.
In addition to classrooms, this Center’s lab is a test kitchen that will address issues around food security in partnership with the VVS Ecosystem – The Farm. This Center will also address through design thinking – how to plan spaces where communities thrive. Architecture for humanity will be the overarching metaphor for the work and learning at the Center for Sustainable Design and Wellness.
The programming opportunities will also bring experts and practitioners to be in residence throughout the year to teach alongside faculty, present content to VVS students and bridge our programs to non-VVS students in our area as well as lifelong adult learners. This Center will be an exemplary outreach platform where other groups and organizations may hold conferences and retreats that align with these principals, and where their engagement elevates the student experiences.
VVS today makes a bold step to continue to be a thought leader in education. VVS led with experiential learning at its inception. It is time to lead with new initiatives – reclaiming changemaker status. The VVS Research Centers are for teaching and learning that is a global collaboration with VVS faculty and community/global partners, leaders, practitioners and scholars to cultivate meaningful, transformative learning experiences that are rooted in equity and evidence – creativity, curiosity and innovation – all tied to the core principles as the highest standard – position VVS as the vanguard.
Through this comprehensive, clustered approach, VVS will continue to capture insights for our students to identify and analyze issues of global wellness, climate change, and social equity as we build a more resilient future together.
We invite you to join us as a leader in support of the future of innovation in education by considering a naming gift in support of The Verde Valley School Learning and Research Centers. You have this rare opportunity to be known as a changemaker in secondary education in perpetuity. These Centers will lead the way in the three most essential learning clusters for these generations: STEM, LANGUAGES, and SUSTAINABILITY. Equally important is that these Centers will serve as a valuable resource to non-VVS students who may access unique opportunities through scheduled programs and through upcoming online learning offerings - all as part of The Verde Valley School Learning and Research Centers.
To explore these opportunities, please contact: Ben Lee, Head of School at blee@vvsaz.org or Kathy Joyce, Director of Advancement at kjoyce@vvsaz.org, or phone 928.284.2272
Margaret Mead
Sedona,