Class Project Turns Into Collaboration
What started out as a class assignment turned into a collaboration with clothing designer Isaiah Shayle. Fifth Grade Science Teacher Victoria Bergman assigned her students a research project – to be displayed on hoodies or a poster. She had given this assignment at previous schools, but this year is the project’s inaugural year at FWCD, and it’s the first time she’s had so many students choose to make the hoodie, rather than a poster.
The project kicked off with the fifth graders researching a scientist of their choosing. Each student had to have a different scientist, which meant 83 scientists were featured. “It’s important that students see scientists as people with interests, personalities, and family dynamics that they also experience. Once a student can relate to a scientist in that way, they start to see that they have what it takes to be one, too,” explained Bergman.
Once the scientists were chosen, students had a month to research and decorate their hoodies to reflect their scientists. The requirements were that the hoodie had to be designed to wear, it couldn’t read like a report, and they had to include 10 interesting facts they found, not just 10 things about their scientist.
For Sofia Grace Perkins, this project turned into something more. Sophia’s mom, Lauren, said that for the first time, Sophia’s dad, Bryan, served as the parent lead on a home project and jumped right in to help. He pulled in family friend and designer Isaiah Shayle to assist with the project. Jane Goodall was Sophia’s chosen scientist. Together, they spent so much enjoyable time researching and making this sweatshirt, learning more about Goodall and what she stands for. Shayle mentioned he does collaborations, and things progressed from there. After Sophia’s class project was complete, they decided to make a similar sweatshirt – to benefit a charity.
Inspired by Sofia Grace’s design, Shayle decided to design a similar sweatshirt to benefit a charity. The sweatshirt was available for purchase with all proceeds going to the Jane Goodall Institute in celebration of Goodall’s 90th birthday. Perkins and Shayle set out to raise $10,000 from the limited-time sweatshirt and they did! Who knew a class project could become a relevant wearable fashion piece?
