THE 3-MINUTE INTERVIEW: Jessica Wodatch

Wodatch is executive director of D.C.’s Two Rivers Public Charter School, where a recent project by second-grade students is helping to shape a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum exhibit. Wait, what?

We’re an “expeditionary learning school,” where students do long-term, in-depth investigations into particular topics. It’s basically taking the concepts of Outward Bound — the program that brings kids into the forest and teaches them about sustainability — into the classroom. Expeditions are about learning by doing, and our students do two expeditions each year. One is on science, one is on social science. If you ask most adults what they remember about school, they almost always name projects.