WESTWOOD -- Xaverian Brothers High School may not be a trade school, but thanks to their X-Ploration Center, students at the all-boys, grades seven-12 school can learn trade skills and demonstrate their understanding of different academic subjects through hands-on projects and experiential learning.

The X-Ploration Center opened in the fall of 2020 in what used to be the school's computer lab. One half is set up like a typical lecture room, with rows of desks and chairs facing a whiteboard. But the other half resembles a workshop, equipped with 3D printers, a laser cutter, a vinyl cutter, a paint booth, and a closet of power tools. There are also computers, a greenscreen and a teleprompter. Sound insulation keeps the noise of the machines from reaching the library one level below.

The director of the X-Ploration Center is Ryan Howard, who has taught science at XBHS for almost 20 years. Teachers can sign up to bring their classes, and students can visit during unstructured periods or after school.

"These types of spaces really give them ownership over their education," Howard said.

XBHS Principal Dr. Michael Nicholson said that while developing the idea for the X-Ploration Center, they looked at similar creative spaces in other schools, including MIT. He said that as the community grows, they will expand the center's offerings in the future.

Though it may seem best suited to serve the sciences, teachers of all subjects are encouraged to use the X-Ploration Center, and many have found that it helps students connect more deeply with their curriculum.

"What's neat is it's really an interdisciplinary space," Nicholson said.

Out of the school's nine academic departments, seven are using the X-Ploration Center so far. Howard helps the teachers brainstorm how they can utilize the facilities in ways that tie in with their curriculum. When a class visits the space, Howard helps with the technology while the teacher focuses on their subject's content.

When students create a project, Howard said, "it's theirs, they own it, so immediately there's more investment by them, more ownership of that, than just taking a test or a quiz," Howard said.

Pete Ball, a social studies teacher and XBHS alum, has brought his class to the X-Ploration Center several times. When his students were studying the Pax Romana, he had them design coins with Latin phrases and symbols to represent different emperors' reigns. Ball compared the project to writing a five-paragraph essay since each symbol provided supporting details.

"They'll tell you, 'Well, I'm not good at being creative,' but if you leave it open to them, you force them to think a little bit, then they find out that they are more creative than they might think," Ball said.

Andrew Sgro has been trying to think of a project related to every book in his seventh- and eighth-grade English curriculum.

To act out scenes from "Romeo and Juliet," some of his students used the greenscreen and teleprompter, while others used sock puppets or LEGO stop-motion animation. For "The Lord of the Flies," students created models of the island with minimal adult instruction and later wrote reflections about their group dynamics.

Sgro said that hands-on activities make their work seem more relevant, and having projects instead of a test or essay makes the unit go more easily.

"Good literature is visual and appeals to senses," Sgro said, adding that they "try to get that idea and make it as tactile as you can."

Products of the work done in the X-Ploration Center can be found throughout the school. Students made the wooden clock on the wall of the admissions center and decorated the computer science center's bulletin board with pieces of dismantled computers. In one hallway corner, a wooden Adirondack chair memorializes the many such chairs used while social distancing during the pandemic. Even some of the stands for the X-Ploration Center's machines were built by students, who laser-engraved their names into the wood.

Extracurricular groups such as the Robotics Club and St. Joseph's Woodworking Society use the X-Ploration Center regularly. But other clubs also find occasional uses for it. The cross-country team made mile markers for their races, and the Theater Department used the machines to build furniture for the upcoming musical.

The woodworking club has been teaching students how to make pens, some of which will be sold at the school's gala. Sean Kelly, a senior, explained how they turn blocks of acrylic, or pieces of wood recycled from the old gym floor, into pens that are laser-engraved with the school's initials.

"It's fun, and it's a satisfying thing to do, to go from a block of acrylic to a finished pen that can be used in class," he said.

Howard has observed a kind of mentoring between students in the X-Ploration Center, as upperclassmen show lowerclassmen how to use the various tools.

"It brings together, even within our student body, guys with very diverse interests," he said.

He has also seen a shift in the dynamic between teachers and students as they learn together. One boy proposed building his own electric guitar. Despite having no familiarity with the instrument, Howard helped him research and figure out how to make one.

"When they come, you don't know what somebody's going to ask to do, but you just find a way to do it. That's the fun, exciting part," Howard said.

Nicholson sees the X-Ploration Center as a way of educating the "whole person," mind, and body, by giving them breaks from lectures and opportunities to do things that make them happy.

"That's going to make them better students in the long run. So, it's a well-balanced approach that the guys clearly are responding to," he said.