There’s a portion of the Sphere Experience film, “Postcard from Earth,” when a school of fish trailed by menacing sharks swim across the immersive, high-resolution 160,000-square-foot wraparound LED screen.
It’s one of many memorable moments of the Darren Aronofsky movie that really got the attention of a group of more than 600 elementary school students visiting last week in the first awarding of a prize in the Sphere XO Student Design Challenge.
When the sharks showed up, the kids squealed with wild delight because when you’re in the audience, it almost feels like you’re in the water with the fish.
Every student at Gordon McCaw STEAM Academy Elementary School got to experience the Sphere, a massive logistical undertaking headed by principal Jennifer Furman-Born and her assistant principal, Wendy Hale.
Executives of the Sphere say it was the first of many educational field trips for an entire student body. Rich Constable, MSG Entertainment executive vice president of government affairs and social impact, said many students have been brought to the Sphere for tours and presentations, but Friday was the first time an entire school was brought to the 17,000-seat performance arena.
Fourth of July contest
“Since the Sphere was first lit up on the Fourth of July two years ago, it captured the attention of the world and certainly the greater Las Vegas community,” Constable said in an interview.
“One of the things that we wanted to do, which literally came from our chairman (James Dolan), was to make sure that members of the community, specifically kids and families, have the opportunity to come and enjoy the wonders of Sphere,” Constable said. “We started small, but every single week during the school year, there are three busloads of 100 kids each from various schools at least three times a week and we coordinate that with (Clark County School District).”
But Friday’s visit was different.
Every student from McCaw boarded buses at the Henderson school and arrived about a half hour before the show began.
Furman-Born said getting the students there was a big challenge.
“It was super difficult,” she said. “The logistics and the organization, it’s something that we’re really good at at McCaw. And I have an amazing assistant principal, Wendy Hale, and she really organized everything from groupings to bus loading to every single student having a ticket, making sure that everyone was part of this experience.”
McCaw students got to go to the Sphere because one of its students, fifth grader Simone Enriquez, submitted art that was chosen as one of eight winners of the first XO Student Design Challenge. Half of the winners were selected after their art was posted online and won in a public vote, and the others were chosen by two professionals, Refik Anadol and Michela Picchi, both of whom have designed for the Exosphere.
Stiff competition
The competition was stiff for the first design challenge, which had a Fourth of July theme
Constable explained that 100,000 submissions came in and art instructors from each school first narrowed the field. More than 100 finalists were selected. Eight winners were picked, four by the public and four by judges. When Furman-Born learned that Enriquez’s work was a finalist, she encouraged parents and school supporters to vote in the two-week online selection.
Not only did the entire student body get to go to the Sphere show, but McCaw and the school of the other elementary winner, Jo Mackey Elementary School fifth grader Rafael Ayala Toledo, received a $10,000 grant from Sphere for the school’s art program.
The students’ art also appeared on the Exosphere on July 4. Middle school and high school and UNLV art students also competed in their own divisions and received similar prizes.
Furman-Born said although it was an art competition, students attending Friday were immersed in Sphere technology and got to mingle with robots and see the venue’s displays before viewing the movie.
Clark County schools are now in the midst of the second contest, which has an Earth Day theme with student art to be displayed on April 22.
McCaw students are already at work preparing their entries for the next contest, and Furman-Born said the opportunity is all about connecting students to their community.
Community connection
“Connection and a love for their community and a love for the valley by being able to see their artwork and feel that they’re part of something bigger than just putting something on paper, that’s what it’s all about,” she said.
“I love it that the Sphere is really allowing the community to be part of the designing of the Sphere, especially the kids,” Furman-Born said. “I think it really shows their involvement in Las Vegas and really makes that connection to the community. We have an amazing art teacher, Cere Henson, and she really works with the kids to try to bring that artwork to life. She works with project-based learning and she makes those connections to the community, and whenever there’s a unique experience that she’s able to explore by allowing the kids to do some artwork for it to support, she always is game to do it.”
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.
