Friday Q&A: Chris Lehmann, Science Leadership Academy

SLA principal Chris Lehmannn speaks at TEDxNYED in March 2010

If you ask Chris Lehmann how he became the principal of the Science Leadership Academy, he’ll just laugh.

“That’s a loooong and complicated story,” he says.

The Philly-native has been the only principal in the SLA’s four-year history and has been an unabashed cheerleader for innovation in our nation’s education system, speaking at TEDxNYED, Ignite Philly and, most recently, the Supernova Hub conference last month about the subject.

The Science Leadership Academy, located near Logan Square, is a partnership between The Franklin Institute and the School District of Philadelphia that focuses primarily on science and technology. At SLA, every student receives a laptop and the school encourages “inquiry-based learning” that eschews tests for projects and collaboration.

When we caught up with Lehmann he was busy preparing for the upcoming school year and anxious to see how the first graduating class of the SLA fared in its first college semester. Below we ask him what’s the one word he reads everyday for inspiration and why innovating at a school is harder than at a startup.

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Science Leadership Academy: A new model for schools

Students walk down the hallway in between classes at the Science Leadership Academy.

In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.

At the Science Leadership Academy the students are treated like adults, says junior Cody Nichols.

Built in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia and the Franklin Institute, the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) is a new student-oriented, project-based program. Put away your No. 2 pencil at SLA, there are no standardized tests aside from the state required PSSAs.

Students work closely together and with teachers to create a variety of projects. Student projects even contribute to the school’s daily activities. SLA’s help desk, for instance, is one of the largest student projects, says Chris Alfano, tehe school’s system administrator and computer support specialist.

“We have about 12 students who are assigned to come here, and they pretty much take care of all the school’s repair needs,” Alfano says. All 10th and 11th graders at SLA are required to have an internship that meets once a week.

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Technically Philly makes brief appearance on Fox 29

After the School District of Philadelphia said in a statement to Technically Philly yesterday that it was investigating how one of its computer peripherals ended up in a landfill in Ghana, Fox 29 reports that the City Controller’s office is also looking into the issue.

John Atwater added good reporting to our piece from yesterday concerning the district’s e-waste. Most importantly, and as we suspected though couldn’t confirm, Atwater reports that Regentech, the district’s current technology recycler, wasn’t on the job in 2004, when the shipment that ended up in Ghana appears to have left Philadelphia.

As we tweeted last night, TP reporter Christopher Wink appeared in Fox’s 10 p.m. newscast, discussing with Atwater details of the story. To see the station’s coverage, follow the jump.

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Shop Talk: School District of Philadelphia launches probe into its computer recycling program

Refurbished computers in a technology recycling warehouse in Fairmount.

How at least one School District of Philadelphia computer monitor ended up in a massive e-waste landfill in Ghana remains unclear.

But, after a PBS Frontline documentary camera spotted the hardware and Technically Philly made repeated followup inquiries, the district has announced it will launch an investigation, according to a written statement given by district spokesman Fernando Gallard.

“The School District of Philadelphia does not encourage or condone the illegal dumping of any school district property anywhere in the world,” read the statement, given first to Technically Philly. “As a result… [we are] currently investigating the source and disposal record of the equipment found in Ghana.”

The computer monitor, which had a district sticker on it, was just a brief moment in the explosive PBS Frontline report on e-waste that was released last month. Likewise, the monitor is just a small part of the hundreds of millions of tons of e-waste that flood the West African country and other developing nations each year.

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School District of Philadelphia, among other e-waste polluting developing nations

A compter labeled "School District of Philadelphia" pollutes a Ghanaian city. This screenshot is taken roughly three minutes and 55 seconds into a PBS Frontline video report.

Computer waste from the School District of Philadelphia is polluting the urban fringes of Ghana.

But then, the computer, depicted above and tagged for having come from the district as seen in an explosive PBS Frontline report on e-waste, is just a small part of the hundreds of millions of tons that flood the West African country.

The rapid transfer of technology has developed a shady, poorly regulated electronic waste recycling industry, Frontline reports, sending computer goods to developing nations, often with easy port access. When old technologies from Western nations, like the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, are “recycled,” they increasingly are finding their way to places like Ghana’s Agbogbloshie, which Frontline reports has become one of the world’s largest digital dumping grounds.

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