Over the past few months, the HRM has welcomed middle and high school groups to explore an exciting array of contemporary art exhibitions and to apply STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) thinking to solve local climate change challenges. The students, whose classes range from eighth grade biology to Advanced Placement art, visited the recent exhibitions DRAW: Heat and Throwing Shade on Extreme Heat: Designing Shade Structures for Yonkers and demonstrated creative connections in accompanying workshops.

In DRAW: Heat, advanced art students from Tuckahoe High School and Riverdale Country School viewed and discussed works by 50 local and nationally renowned contemporary artists such as Kiki Smith and Kara Walker to see how the theme of physical or metaphorical heat was explored in their work. Some students also contributed to artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s interactive piece 100 Years of Protest (2025), in which visitors were invited to trace and draw images of international climate protest that were projected onto the gallery walls.

In Throwing Shade on Extreme Heat, students from the Irvington High School’s Architecture Club and Sleepy Hollow Middle School learned how municipal shade structures are sited and designed, and why they are being pursued as solutions in some heat-stressed neighborhoods in Yonkers. After their exhibition tours, the students engaged in a workshop that made it relevant to their own lives. They were prompted to think of a location in their hometown that suffers from a lack of comfortable shade in the summer, create a model of a permanent structure to address the problem, and model the changing shape and position of their structure’s shadow.

The teens, some of whom are pictured here, presented thoughtful and sophisticated solutions. School visits like these make the curriculum come alive. Maria Sabbouh, 8th grade Math teacher from Sleepy Hollow said, “Throwing Shade on Extreme Heat makes the real-world phenomenon of ‘heat stress in urban environments’ tangible. Students can see how built environments (roads, buildings, lack of shade) contribute to heat islands, and how that challenges human ability to maintain homeostasis.”

Thank you to all of the schools and students who have visited the Museum so far this school year and we look forward to welcoming many more this school year.

Megan Byrnes
Manager, School Programs

Marc Taylor
Senior Manager, Planetarium and Science Programs