Explore-Create-Connect (ECC) creates opportunities for students to engage with their community and learn more about where they live and the people who live there in a fun, risk free environment. Partnering with Briggs Chaney Middle School, Impact Silver Spring, and Clancy Works Dance Company, ECC furthers BCMS “Big Three Ideas” of student engagement, building positive relationships, and developing 21st Century Capacities. Students engage in arts-based inquiries leading to exploring in-school and out-of-school environments and creating temporary and permanent art works, performances, and events by examining ways that multiple art forms can be woven together in collaboration to answer questions or solve problems.

Students interested in participating in photography, visual art or dance explore the essential questions of:
WHO AM I? Personal identity is investigated through self-portraits produced via creative movement, media and/or visual arts and informed by interviews with family members.
WHO ARE YOU? Peer identity is introduced through different perspectives and examining diversity. Youth will illustrate their conclusions in an artistic manner and then showcase the work through a shared exhibition for the community.
WHO ARE WE? Students construct artworks illustrating the connections and ties they have created within ECC and what makes the program special to them (Community is the Sum of Us and The Needs of the Community).

The curriculum transitions from self to community creating cyclical dialogues between participants, peers, parents and other community members. With guidance from IMPACT, parents/guardians engage in circles to create a comfort level for their participation in school activities. Parents are also supported so they may play an integral role in making ECC a success as they develop ways of engaging in the school and greater BCMS community.