Facilitator: Rich Lehrer
Email: RichLehrer12@gmail.com
Rich Lehrer believes deeply in the potential of Project Based Learning and authentic making experiences to help students become empowered agents for good in their lives, communities, and the world. Rich started his career as a middle school science teacher in British Columbia, Canada and then spent 6 years at Escuela Campo Alegre, Venezuela, and 5 years at The Graded School, Brazil. Rich was the Director of Innovation for Brookwood School (Manchester, MA) until July of 2019, when he moved to Santiago, Chile to become the HS Design Technology teacher at The International School Nido de Aguilas. Rich also continues to consult as a National Faculty member for PBWorks (formerly the Buck Institute for Education) and i2 Learning.
In 2011, Rich began a multi-year connection with MIT’s D-LAB, creating authentic STEM projects designed to provide global collaboration opportunities for middle school students. In 2013, he led a transformative project that resulted in a group of his Brookwood 8th grade students becoming one of the first school groups in the world to build a functional 3D printed mechanical prosthetic for a child: in this case, Rich’s son, Max. The profound experiences associated with this project led to Rich joining PBLWorks and serving as the k-12 assistive device education coordinator for the Enable Community Foundation. This work has confirmed for Rich the power of students to create effective solutions to real life problems and for the past six years he and his colleagues have been breaking innovative ground in the use of 3D printing and other "next generation technology" to teach purposeful design and community engagement.
