Community Outreach

2025 Summer Pre-College Creative AI & Design Course

September 29, 2025 by Nettrice Gaskins

Slim Reaper Pop Up Stage and Presentation

Lesley STEAM offered the pre-college Creative AI & Design course for the second consecutive summer. We recognize the importance of creativity that, fundamentally, requires having or showing one’s ability to produce new and valuable things. With the proliferation of generative AI or GenAI, more and more creative people are using machines as tools to interrogate AI and make art. With this in mind, we worked closely with Cambridge Youth Programs (CYP) to recruit Cambridge, MA youth to explore and go beyond the fundamentals of creative AI, which refers to artificial intelligence systems capable of generating novel and original content, such as art, music, writing, and design.

Artwork by Norman Teague and Stephanie Dinkins — Left: Installation view of the exhibition “Designer’s Choice: Norman Teague—Jam Sessions” at MoMA. Photograph by Jonathan Dorado; Right: Installation view of Stephanie Dinkins’s If We Don’t, Who Will? in the Plaza at 300 Ashland Place. Photo by Avery J. Savage

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2024 Summer Pre-College Creative AI & Design Course

August 18, 2024 by Nettrice Gaskins

Prompt Battle 1 — Our first generative AI prompt battle.

This summer we invited 13 Cambridge, MA youth from diverse backgrounds to explore and learn the fundamentals of generative artificial intelligence or GenAI. This experience created space for youth to bring their identities and interests into creative computing in ways that allows them to see themselves in GenAI. They worked together and addressed questions such as: What is generative AI and where do we see it in the art world? How does working with AI tools affect creativity? Can AI teach us how to be more creative? What are the benefits and harms of GenAI?

2023 Summer Art, AI & Robotics explores 3D art, coding & invention at Lesley

September 14, 2023 by Nettrice Gaskins

Setting up the Paintbrush Bot — PHOTO: Setting up a paintbrush bot (with LSTEAM director Sue Cusack)

This summer we invited 12 Somerville High School (SHS) students from diverse backgrounds to explore the combination of three-dimensional art, machine learning artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics. The in-person course built upon an existing collaboration with SHS teachers Karen Leary (math) and Laura Peters (robotics) and Lesley STEAM. Every day for two weeks SHS students met the SHS/LSTEAM at Lesley University’s College of Art and Design or LA+D. Like the 2021 course, students earned 4 Lesley college credits that were matched by 2.5 math or 2.5 art credits. The skills they learned can be applied to other classes they can take during the school year such as math, art, robotics, and computer science.

Family-Style Making for the Cambridge Science Festival

April 22, 2019 by jacy

Lesley STEAM Learning Lab welcomed over 50 families into the makerspace on Friday, April 19th to engage in a wide variety of making challenges. “I Love Trash” kicked off the morning session for K-5th graders and the “Digital Making Playground” rounded off afternoon for 6-12th graders and their accompanying adults.

Design Your World: Part of the Cambridge Science Fest

May 2, 2017 by jacy

Families using Tinkercad software for 3D design.
The Lesley STEAM Learning Lab hosted two hands-on workshops on Friday, April 20th as part of the 2017 Cambridge Science Festival. The session activities invited parents and caregivers to tinker with their children and develop unique solutions for a host of design and engineering challenges. [Read more…] about Design Your World: Part of the Cambridge Science Fest