The First Project Showtime at Open Meadow Middle School

After five weeks of hard work, students at Open Meadow (OMMS) presented their first project!
In a typical MATI-OMMS class, students start the class by filling out their objectives for the day and then each one responds to a check-in question. This gives each child an opportunity to hear his/her voice and begin to focus on the class process. OMMS students can be pretty energetic most days making the class a fun challenge for all. With a ratio of 1:2, adult to students, MATI’s dedicated volunteers jump in with the instructors to help keep kids focused and on task!

Over the past five weeks, MATI instructor Bobby Abrahamson and OMMS art teacher, Tab Waterman introduced the concept of “One-way versus Two-way communication.” This is a special technique companies use to sell their products. Students spent a fair amount of time exploring how companies employ popular “lifestyles” to sale their products. For example they discovered how companies identify their products with positive lifestyles: “By wearing this product, you are strong!” “By driving this car, you show others that you have a relaxed life style.” Finally, students divided into small groups and began to create their own advertising campaign. They decided to promote a virtual cola product they called, “Kool Kola.” The task was to decide on the type of audience they wanted to appeal to then design and create a poster for their product.

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