24 Hours Plays

New Design High School sophomore Sydney White performed her original poem "I Pity the Silent," at 24 Plays on Broadway to a packed house on November 9th at American Airlines Theater. 24 Hours Plays is an annual event that calls for creative types to write, direct and perform six original short plays in just under a day. The event, sponsored by Montblanc, is a benefit for New Design High School's main cultural partner Urban Arts Partnership. Performing this evening along with Sydney were Anthony Mackie, Ashton Kutcher, Billy Crudup , David Cross, Demi Moore, Diane Neal, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Esposito, Julia Stiles, Liev Schreiber, Michael Ealy, Rachel Dratch, Rosario Dawson and Rosie Perez. Sydney rocked the house and one of the above celebs teared when she heard her the poem.

Fresh Prep

The Robin Hood foundation has awarded Urban Arts Partnership a grant for our year-round Fresh Prep program at New Design High School. Fresh Prep is an arts-based approach to raising student achievement on the Global History and Geography Regents exam, fusing hip-hop music with the New York State core curriculum. Drawing from current research and best practices in student engagement, vocabulary development and verbal memory, the curriculum features vocabulary-building, multiple-choice strategies, and essay-writing units designed for students to take ownership of their own learning while creating original, curriculum-based artwork.

Urban Arts Partnership and New Design High School are the first arts organizations to be awarded funding by Robin Hood, a competitive foundation known for funding programs with proven methods for breaking the cycle of poverty. Urban Arts Partnership is implementing the Fresh Prep: Global History classroom integration for 150 students at New Design High School this year and developing curricula for Fresh Prep in English, U.S. History, Living Environment and Mathematics.

Urban Arts Partnership is the first arts organization to be awarded funding by Robin Hood, a competitive foundation known for funding programs with proven methods for breaking the cycle of poverty. Urban Arts Partnership is implementing the Fresh Prep: Global History classroom integration for 150 students at New Design High School this year and developing curricula for Fresh Prep in English, U.S. History, Living Environment and Mathematics.

Kiva Kookie Assembly Line

The year 4 design students are opening their own cookie companies. The proceeds will go to benefit entrepreneurs in third world countries through KIVA. We have been studying assembly lines and efficiency. This is our most efficient assembly line; creating nine bags of cookie dough in twenty five minutes. This will make 108 cookies for us to package and sell. In the end of the video students switch to their label creation assembly lines.

DFL 2.0

GO GREEN For Halloween Fashion Show

Based on the hit show Project Runway, students created fall fashions from recycled newspaper.

Fashionista Julie Zenobi piloted the venture.

Go Green For Halloween!

Some behind the scenes shots of students preparing for this year's launch of the Go Green for Halloween Fashion Show: