Fall River class creates musical staircase
FALL RIVER, Mass. (WJAR) — You could say this Fall River music class was thinking “Big.”
“It was an interesting year,” Morton Middle School music teacher Chelsea Swan said. “Towards the end of the year, we actually had a schedule change and I had these guys twice a week instead of just once a week like the rest of my classes. They were already ahead in the curriculum, so I decided to start doing some technology with them.”
An idea popped into Swan’s head.
“I said, ‘Hey guys, we have this staircase in the back of the school that no one really uses. What if we tried to turn it into a piano staircase?" Swan said. "And they went straight to work."
Four students, including Devyn Columbus, led teams to code circuit boards called Makey Makeys donated by Amazon last year and transform the old staircase into serenading steps.
“It’s a really fun thing to learn, especially because you are programming it, you are doing it, you learn more, but you also have fun at the same time,” Columbus said. “Since we were all working together, it taught us teamwork which was a big part of it, so it was a very great thing to learn.”
Student Nathan Botelho said seeing the final product made for a “huge, proud moment.”
“The final product was honestly a lot of fun making. It was kind of a crazy learning experience,” Botelho said.
Swan said she was proud of the students for thinking outside of the box.
“It was just kind of an idea that these kids took and ran away with, so it was great,” Swan said.
Students were happy to end the class on a high note.
“We’re just trying to make the best of these unusual circumstances that we have, trying to take into consideration the little things that we get like this,” Botelho said.
The student's last day of school is Thursday.