STEAM Community Engagement

Foxcroft was the first academic girls-only boarding school in Virginia to become part of Purdue University’s EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service Learning) High Program, a design-based service learning program through which student teams provide engineering solutions for local non-profits. Our “clients” include schools, horseback riding centers, the humane society, and a history museum. Recent projects built range from creating a display for the Goose Creek Association, trail mapping right here on Foxcroft's campus, and designing and fabricating a sign for Mobile Hope’s Graffiti & Silk thrift shop.

In a 3D design and fabrication course, students had the opportunity to 3D print and assemble prosthetic hands for individuals with upper limb differences. Students learned how these devices, designed by e-NABLE, could be personalized to individual recipients and used as an empowering tool that is more readily available than traditional medical devices.

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Foxcroft's STEAM faculty have partnered with the Oak Spring Foundation on a number of projects, including field trips to photograph local flora, large scale community art installations, seed saving, and Wintermission courses on floral arrangements. The partnership carries on a longstanding connection between Foxcroft and Oak Spring, as the Foundation was founded by alumna Rachel "Bunny" Mellon ’29.

As part of an EPICS project in an Engineering class, students partnered with Windy Hill Foundation, which helps to develop and maintain the low-income residential complex in Middleburg including the Levis Hill House for seniors and Llewellyn Village for families. Foxcroft students designed and constructed a new gate for the community garden, which is affectionately named "Rene's Roots" in honor of Windy Hill's founder, Irene "Rene" Llewellyn. Our students used this inspiration to laser cut and hand paint a custom sign for the gate, which was featured during the garden dedication in the lineup of “Look Up” events organized and hosted by ET Projects.

To deepen the learning of our Animal Science students, Foxcroft's STEAM faculty collaborate with Blue Ridge Wildlife Center, an animal hospital dedicated to wildlife. Our students have benefitted from field trips to see the wildlife rehabilitation center in-person, participated in internships over Wintermission, and even welcomed the Blue Ridge Wildlife Ambassadors (including a Red Morph Screech Owl, a Big Brown Bat, an Eastern Ratsnake, a Striped Skunk, and the fan-favorite Tugboat, a Wood Turtle) to campus during Morning Meeting. These hands-on experiences help students apply classroom knowledge to a real-world environment, often very close to their hearts.

Aspiring environmentalists at Foxcroft have the opportunity to get their feet wet through partnership with the Goose Creek Association, which is dedicated to protecting and preserving the natural resources, historic heritage, and rural quality of life found in Virginia. In addition to internships and creek clean-ups, students have supported GCA with an EPICS project centered around early education. In 2021, students designed and fabricated two educational board games that were unveiled at the Goose Creek Association's Family Festival.

We created a game to teach the families at the festival about stream monitoring...Kids had one minute to scoop and sort bugs from the stream (bins) and then we would count up the number of pollution intolerant, somewhat tolerant, and tolerant bugs to see how healthy their stream was. We got many congratulations at the Festival, and the families seemed to really enjoy it! I am really proud of the impact we made with our project and the work we put into it.

– Heidi D. ’23

I was able to show my artistic interest in this project as well as learning new technologies that can be used to help demonstrate an important cause...It was very rewarding at the end when we got to go to the Festival and actually put our hands-on diagram game into play. Little kids were learning the importance of the ecosystem and adults were wanting to know more about the educational outreach aspect of our project. 

– Alexa C. ’23