iCreatetoEducate for Education Week

March 16, 2012

Melissa Pickering is the founder of iCreatetoEducate, a start up that aims to engage K-12 students worldwide with science and math through animations they create themselves, photographed at her offices in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. The company’s software was developed at Tufts University and iCreatetoEducate now has about 50,000 users worldwide, 75% of whom are in the US. M. Scott Brauer for Education Week

Monica Navarro (16, junior) creates an animation using SAM Animation software after school at Josiah Quincy Upper School in Boston, Mass., on Thurs., Feb. 3, 2012. The pair are students in Kristina Buenafe math class. Buenafe has been using the SAM Software, which was developed by Tufts University and put into schools by Melissa Pickering’s iCreatetoEducate company, in her math classes since the ’09-’10 school year. The goal of iCreatetoEducate is to help students engage with math and science in a creative way. Buenafe says that “rather than memorizing for a test” the software helps students “express themselves in a creative way.” “They come up with things I wouldn’t have come up with myself,” said Buenafe. “It helps my ideas come to life…I like being creative” said Navarro.

Monica Navarro (16, junior) creates an animation using SAM Animation software after school at Josiah Quincy Upper School in Boston, Mass., on Thurs., Feb. 3, 2012.

Alex Yen (18, senior) creates an animation using a LEGO figure and SAM Animation software after school at Josiah Quincy Upper School in Boston, Mass., on Thurs., Feb. 3, 2012.

Nancy Peng (16, junior) creates an animation in which an alien meets a crab using SAM Animation software after school at Josiah Quincy Upper School in Boston, Mass., on Thurs., Feb. 3, 2012.

Had a tough shoot in February for Education Week covering a startup called iCreatetoEducate. The startup puts animation software and webcams in the hands of children worldwide to approach math, science, and other subjects in a creative way. It was one of those assignments where you walk into a room and there are 4 people sitting quietly in the room using computers, but I got some images I like. Click through to see how Education Week published the images.