After more than 20 years of working various jobs in the technology sector, Adele Falco was ready for a change.
“What I despised about the tech field was that it was becoming more and more isolating,” said Falco, an Irvington resident who most recently worked in enterprise sales for BlackBerry. “I”™ve always thought technology is fabulous, but what”™s slipping away is person-to-person communications.”
That”™s why in 2013, the mother of three founded Curious-on-Hudson, a Dobbs Ferry education center for students and adults whose interests, including technology, lie outside the conventional curriculum of public education. Through year-round courses and programs in technology, engineering, science, nature and other topics, the hands-on center was established to fulfill the trade-related curiosity of local students.
During the school year, the center holds after-school and weekend programs that can range from cooking and baking to print-making to game design. In the summer months, Curious-on-Hudson holds weekly enrichment camps, of five half-days each, where students can learn woodworking or how to build a computer. Recently, it hosted a coding class.
Programs can cost from $200 to $300 for a five-day summer course of three-hour sessions, offered for different ages. One-time weekend classes can cost about $100, and six- to eight-week sessions about $175 to $200.
Curious-on-Hudson has four permanent employees at its 145 Palisade St. location, but Falco taps into her Rivertowns connections to find independent contractors to lead courses. Instructors include area college professors, sculptors, and artists, and anyone interested in teaching a course can pitch an idea to Falco on the center”™s website.
“This isn”™t online or remote learning,” she said. “It”™s learning with real people in live situations. That was my goal.”
Sharon Bilman, a Hastings-on-Hudson resident, discovered Curious-on-Hudson through a neighbor whose daughters had taken a bridge-building course at the center. She enrolled her son, Henry, 8, an avid builder, and eventually her younger son, Ryan, 5. Both have built roller coasters and submarines, and this summer, Ryan has taken to building robots.
“When I pick them up, there is a tremendous energy that fills the space ”” the buzz of kids thinking and creating,” Bilman said. “I suppose we”™ve become Curious-on-Hudson addicts. We just can”™t get enough.”
Though the youth programs and courses were a success from the start, programs geared toward adults were a flop, Falco said. “Cost wasn”™t a factor. It was really time that was the barrier” for working adults.
“It”™s been extremely challenging and not an easy ride starting a small business,” she said.
This year the center eliminated its adult programs and focused solely on K-5 and middle school courses. In the fall, Curious-on-Hudson will introduce its after-school learning programs to JCC on the Hudson in Tarrytown and several area school districts. An eight-class pilot program called Kids Innovate Create and Solve will be held at Springhurst Elementary School in Dobbs Ferry, for example.
Despite the early struggles of a small startup, Falco said Curious-on-Hudson has now seen more than 4,000 students pass through its doors in 2 1/2 years of operation after re-evaluating its approach. Most pupils come from Dobbs Ferry and the neighboring Rivertowns ”” Hastings-on-Hudson, Ardsley and Irvington ”” but during the summer, she also sees students from Manhattan, the Bronx, Chappaqua, Bronxville and Briarcliff Manor. In March, Falco was a featured speaker at the SXSWedu conference in Austin, Texas.
Anna Bella Guggenheimer, director of visitor experience for the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture, said her daughter has benefited from Curious-on-Hudson”™s unique approach.
“We believe strongly in a public school education, but let”™s face it, our daughter”™s love of the natural world, her desire to dig deeper into an interest and to make lots of art are not fostered in school,” Guggenheimer said. “Where else can a 5 1/2-year-old, in one summer, learn woodworking and use real tools to fabricate a design of her own creation, explore the banks of the Hudson through the lens of a biologist and paleontologist, and then devour color theory and produce multiple masterpieces that are messy and not projects even I, an artist, would embark on, with her at home.”
Though the center is a STEM ”” science, technology, engineering and mathematics ”” educational institution, Falco said she doesn”™t want to limited by that label. She has also made sure to incorporate the center”™s unique location into programs.
The site of a former warehouse and 1800s brewery on an offshoot of Palisade Street, the center property has been included in educational talks to both children and adults. Instructors take students down to the cove behind the building, connected to the Hudson River by an estuary, for courses like Aquanuts, a marine biology course that explores tides and animals and plant life.
“We want to create an informal learning environment,” Falco said. “We want to tell people, ”˜Come to a cool warehouse in Dobbs Ferry and take an interesting class.”™ We”™re de-institutionalizing learning.”
