Course Listings | Intermediate Program

The police sit frustrated and clueless at the crime scene realizing that the only way they’ll solve this one is with your help. Join our forensics team and help determine the value of criminal evidence by experimenting with chemical residue, “blood” spatter, fingerprints, and unknown fibers. To solve the forensic mysteries, we’ll study hypothetical and real cases and look deeper into the abilities and limitations of forensic science. As we work our own crime scene, you’ll act as scientist and detective and use newfound lab skills, deductive logic, and gut instinct to solve the case.

Television makes the medical profession seem glamorous and your pediatrician makes it look fun, but this course will make the job real. Join us as an Explo medical intern as we rotate through fields such as dermatology, epidemiology, and neurology on our daily rounds. Each day, we will discuss different aspects of teen health and perform hands-on activities relating to various medical specialties. We will diagnose illnesses and prescribe treatments while reviewing such topics as medical ethics and proper medical procedures. If you are ready to think on your feet and care for others, skip the medical school entrance exams (for now) and join us in the Explo medical classroom!

Wanna add a little science to your soufflé? Or maybe a dash of chemistry to your couscous? Put on your lab coat and your chef’s hat, because we’re going to turn the Explo kitchen into a culinary laboratory. We’ll torch the tops of crème brûlée, shrink carrots using the power of osmosis, and inject air into foods (think whipped cream . . . even whipped peas) to see how it changes their taste. You’ll investigate how to use chocolate dispersion to create a flourless cake, how to make cheeses with different pH levels, and, most importantly, how to attain instant dessert gratification by making ice cream with dry ice. Want to bake your cake and explore it too? Then this is the class for you!

You've just inherited your great uncle's llama farm, and it's your job to turn a stable of 30 llamas into a profitable business. What types of llamas will you breed? Banana ears? Crimpy wool? Long hair? Black hair? The llama market sets its prices for llamas based on a variety of these desirable traits. To build the most profitable group of llamas, you'll need to become an expert in genetics and selective breeding. Together, we'll investigate DNA, simulate mitosis and meiosis, and use Punnett Squares to understand how dominant and recessive genes are passed on. Then, using the llama market as our guide, you will simulate selective breeding of your llama farm and see if you have what it takes to build a profitable stable of llamas.

Brush it, throw it, press it, spin it, work it, smooth it. Contemporary painters are constantly exploring the nature of paint and painting. In our studio course, we'll join the investigation. You'll create large-scale splatter paintings in the style of Jackson Pollock, pump out dozens of Warhol-esque silkscreen portraits, and create depth, space, and movement with fields of colors like Mark Rothko. From Picasso to Pop Art, we’ll explore a range of painting styles and produce an eclectic portfolio of abstract and non-objective work. If you’re interested in pushing (prodding, mixing, stirring, pouring) paint to the next level, then join us as we discover what abstract painting is all about.

Are you ready to harness the power of digital photography? We’ll start with the basics – learning how to frame better photos in your viewfinder or digital display using the “rule of thirds” and other compositional tricks. You’ll discover how aperture, shutter speeds, and image compression affect the quality of your digital files—and once we move into the editing room, you’ll get into the nitty-gritty of image manipulation using Photoshop. If you’ve ever wanted to superimpose a dog’s head on a human body (and make it look real), or simply wanted to have better control of digital darkroom tools, this is the course for you. You’ll soon learn that in digital photography, taking the picture isn’t the end . . . in fact, it’s only the beginning!

Are you interested in style and learning how to make fashion pieces for yourself? Then join us for a course in the fundamentals of fashion handbag design. Along the way, you'll learn to hand- and machine-sew and get valuable practice cross-stitching, blanket-stitching, and tack-stitching. You'll cut and sew your bag, and then, with designs you'll sketch yourself, add embellishments like buttons, bows, handles, clasps, and closures. With a vast collection of patterns and materials to choose from, you'll be able to carve out a unique and personal direction for your handbag. By the end of the course, you'll not only walk away with a fantastic bag of your making, but also a great foundation of fashion skills to take with you.

[This course is intended for students with little to no fashion design experience.]

POW! ZAP! BANG! There’s more to comic books than exclamation points and ALL CAPS. There’s a world to be created where anything can happen and where you get the final say. From classic Marvel comics, to the Sunday funnies, to Japanese manga, we will discover the art of rendering characters, learning to draw, color, and shade their movements in a variety of styles. Using storyboard techniques and panel layouts, we’ll develop rich characters, fantastic settings, and thrilling plotlines that will give our tales the power to grab our readers’ imagination and not let go. By the end, you’ll have created not just a comic – but a story bursting with color, action, and life.

You already know fashion sewing basics. Now it's time to put those skills to the test. Join us in our fashion design center as we transform basic skirt patterns into custom-fit, custom-styled works of art. You'll build and stitch together a basic outline of a skirt in muslin, and then—as you draft ideas and draw sketches for ways to modify your skirt—will fashion the design into an entirely new pattern (with a custom fit). As you assemble your final garment from our vast collection of textiles and adornments, you'll practice a variety of fashion-making skills: matching fabrics, layering materials, and custom fitting your design for the perfect drape. So if you're ready to build on your fashion skills— and start designing your own clothing—then what are you waiting for? You're tailor-made for this course!

[This couse is intended for students with some knowledge of machine- and hand-sewing.]

If you can see it, you can draw it. Seriously. By sketching the human figure, you will notice things that only a true student of the human body can: where fingertips fall on the leg, the placement of the eyes on the face, the way a hairline folds over the ear. Together, we will practice an array of drawing techniques, from short gesture drawings to longer figure studies, training our eye to see the body as a series of interconnected lines of different magnitude and weight. Through technique and observation exercises—and just plain drawing—you will develop a diverse portfolio of work that will reflect a new mastery of the body and the line.

Clay!? We don't need no stinkin' clay! This summer, we're going to make sculptures out of any and everything but clay—ping pong balls, wood, rubber bands, piping, you name it. We'll make a facial replica of former Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby out of blocks of Jell-O. By cutting, twisting, folding, and stacking, we'll turn a pile of paper into miniaturized castles, dinosaurs, and skeletons. We'll make large-scale animals out of string, cast shoes and shirts with plaster, and build sculptures that hang in trees or from the sides of buildings. You'll investigate the nature of materials as you construct non-objective works from a piece of chewing gum, a bust from a box of paper clips, and a monument from found objects on the campus of Wellesley College. The art we make will not only be unconventional—it will also be the kind of art that people will never forget.

Come explore both your silly side and your dramatic nature through a variety of improvisation games. In addition to improving your improvisational skills, you’ll learn how to become more aware of your fellow actors and how to move and use your body and voice more comfortably. Teamwork and positive support of your fellow actors is key, so when your scene partner asks if you are the two-headed, purple haired clown who likes to eat chocolate ice cream on hot dogs, of course what you say is, “YES, and on Fridays I like to eat them with mint chocolate chip ice cream, too!”

Do you think you could make Angelina Jolie look like the Wicked Witch of the West? How does Johnny Depp become Captain Jack Sparrow? If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at the magic of make-up artistry and costume design, this course is for you! We’ll practice dramatic make-up techniques—building scars and bruises, attaching prosthetic noses and facial hair, painting on age and beauty. Through character analysis, we will develop unique costume designs including sketches, renderings, fabric/material samples, as well as other details that complete the look for a range of characters. At the end of the course, you’ll have a collection of make-up head shots and costume design concepts that will make Hollywood drool.

A crowd of friends. A coffee house setting. You. On stage. Performing covers and originals on an acoustic guitar. Never picked up a guitar before? No problem, this course is for beginners. Together, we’ll learn basic chords and strumming techniques as we investigate the craft of the singer-songwriter. We’ll mine the catalogues of artists ranging from the Beatles to Gnarls Barkley as we explore song structure and subject matter. We’ll workshop your first foray into writing an original song—honing verses, rhyme patterns, and choruses—and prepare you for an unplugged final performance, featuring music that you’ve stamped with a trademark that is uniquely you.

[Students should have little or no experience playing guitar. We will provide guitars.]

Do you belt out songs from Grease when you’re alone in the shower? Have you dreamed of being in Oklahoma or wished you were haunting the stage in Phantom of the Opera? Well, stop dreaming and start living the life of musical theatre! Working in ensembles and solos, you’ll perform in a variety of roles while we enact scenes from musicals such as Chicago and Wicked. As we sing and dance our way through class, we’ll develop musical theatre techniques including character portrayal, voice projection, and improvisation. For our final performance, you’ll be costuming, choreographing, and performing a medley of show tunes that will storm the Broadway stage.

Acting is not about pretty faces and delivering lines. It’s about emotions, feelings, and transporting an audience to a different time and place. With study, practice, and patience, you’ll be able to become the part of a dramatic (or comedic) character and move others to tears (or laughter). We’ll explore both character and method acting techniques and learn exercises to improve your voice projection and enunciation. From monologues, to simple dialogue, to ensemble acting, we’ll help you overcome stage fright and prepare you for all the elements of theatre. During our final performances, you’ll perform soliloquies, scenes, and skits that will have the Explo audience on the edge of their seats. So step up to the stage and join our actors’ studio.