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Keen Curiosity and Determined Persistence Will Solve Some of the World's Biggest Challenges

2/21/2025

Carol Steven, Middle School Principal

What sets SMLS’s programming apart from others is that we are inspiring a keen curiosity, a deep work ethic, and a determined persistence in our students. These are the attributes that will help SMLS graduates own their future.

We saw this in action recently as our Middle School students and teachers participated in the annual Middle School Future Prize Challenge Day co-hosted by CIS Ontario and Future Design School at Upper Canada College, winning several challenges throughout the day. Teams collaborated using a design thinking process to learn about issues in their local community, build empathy for people impacted by those challenges, develop creative ideas to solve the problems, create solution prototypes, and pitch their ideas to a panel of judges.

Another example is a recent MS7 student project where students followed an engineering design process to research characteristics of the planet Mars and then design, build, code, and test robot prototypes that could be used to explore and colonize Mars. One group created a prototype that could identify fertile soil suitable for crop cultivation and another group designed a prototype equipped with colour sensors to detect lava tubes, aiming to establish living quarters for astronauts!

What SMLS does is extend curriculum beyond subject matter expertise. Our programming, and the unique environment where that programming comes to life, helps emphasize critical thinking, problem solving, risk-taking, and resilience. We create an environment for girls to find passions, leverage them, and get a leg up in the competitive world, and we can’t wait to see what they’ll do next.

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