Our high school curriculum helps students grow as creative thinkers, problem-solvers, and team players. Each term, they build real-world skills—like communication, collaboration, and adaptability—while exploring new technology and topics from different fields.
At NuVu, students spend most of their time in hands-on, collaborative studios—three to four week deep dives into a specific theme or challenge designed by our team of expert coaches. Within each studio, students develop their own unique projects through an iterative design process, guided by coaches with deep expertise in technology, design, and the arts.
At the end of each trimester, students tackle Open Innovation. Here, students go one step further: they define the problem themselves. This helps build independence, creativity, and the ability to notice and respond to real challenges in the world around them.
By senior year, this all builds up to a Capstone Project—similar to a thesis. This major, self-directed piece of work will reflect who they are and what they care about.
In sync with design studios, students also attend both Seminars and Skill Building Sessions.
Through reading, writing and discussion, Seminars allow NuVu students to explore topics that extend and inform each year’s studios.
Skill Building Sessions are focused, one-hour sessions designed to introduce new topics or strengthen specific skills. A wide range of these standalone sessions is offered throughout each trimester.
An important part of our curriculum is the student presentation that occurs at the end of each design studio. Students are required to present and defend their work to coaches and peers. At the end of each trimester, students host a larger presentation that welcomes families and the greater NuVu community together for an evening of student work. Students hone their communication skills through presentations and demonstrations of their work, answering questions and diving deep into their work.
At NuVu High School, students build a strong foundation in core subjects like English, Science, and Math. We weave these subjects into our studios and seminars, where learning happens through hands-on projects. Our goal is to make every course engaging and connected to real-world experiences.
This is how we organize our studios within a term. In each session lasting 3-4 weeks, we have 4-5 studios taking place simultaneously. The studio topics within each session usually covers a wide range of topics and skills, providing students with various options to choose from based on their interests and learning goals.
Working in collaboration with Heidi Latsky, NuVu students designed wearables for four of her performers for On Display Global. On Display uses fashion as a tool of social justice, aiming to celebrate the beauty of difference. Each performer has a disability, and teams of NuVu students worked closely with the performers to design individualized wearables that highlighted a passion, experience or personality trait.
In this studio, students tackled the issue of mass incarceration by partnering with The Ahimsa Collective to design a permanent tiny home community for formerly incarcerated individuals. With a focus on creating a nurturing, safe, and healing environment, students explored how architecture can support reentry and reduce recidivism. To design ethically and empathetically, they examined the historical and systemic roots of the prison system through documentaries, readings, and direct interviews with their client. They applied this research to develop architectural solutions that prioritize dignity, health, and well-being. Along the way, students gained technical design skills using tools like Revit and Enscape, while learning to think critically about the role of architecture in social justice and community healing.
Exploring how robotics can support accessibility in the home, students designed and prototyped autonomous assistive technologies. They began by building foundational knowledge through hands-on exercises and readings on robotics and emerging technologies like generative AI. Working with key components such as servos, motors, sensors, and cameras, they applied mathematical concepts such as forward kinematics to build robots capable of competing in an autonomous vehicle challenge. With this technical base, they shifted to human-centered design, developing robots that address real-world mobility and accessibility needs. Final projects included functional prototypes and written reports detailing their design decisions, constraints, and aspirations, blending engineering, robotics, and inclusive design to create meaningful impact.
Students became change makers by developing and sharing powerful public narratives to inspire social action. Using a framework inspired by Marshall Ganz’s model from the Kennedy School’s “School of Resistance,” they explored their own story (Self), connected with collective values (Us), and addressed timely issues (Now) to create urgent calls for change. Students engaged with local activists and organizations, selected causes they were passionate about, and co-designed products and media—ranging from videos to comics to digital platforms—to support those causes. Through this process, they thought like activist-anthropologists, examined how change happens, and stepped into leadership roles within the movements that mattered to them
