A Grade 8 student designing a custom educational toy for a kindergartener. A theatre student learning physics through stage lighting. A robotics team fabricating its own metal components. A young filmmaker recording dialogue in a professional sound booth.

At Branksome Hall’s new Karen L. Jurjevich Innovation Centre and Studio Theatre, these experiences are no longer confined to separate classrooms or disciplines.

Known as iCAST, the new Toronto facility brings science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship, design, media and the performing arts together under one roof, with the goal of giving students from Junior Kindergarten through Grade 12 opportunities to move between disciplines and turn ideas into tangible projects.

For Branksome Hall Principal Grace McCallum, that approach reflects the world students will eventually enter.

“Education must prepare young people for a world where the most pressing challenges do not arrive neatly labeled as ‘science,’ ‘business,’ or ‘art,’” McCallum said. “At Branksome Hall, we believe in unlocking possibility by breaking down these traditional boundaries.”

During a typical week, McCallum said, that could mean learning physics through stage engineering in the Lo Family Studio Theatre, developing and prototyping a business through the school’s Noodle accelerator, or moving from coding a robot to producing a podcast.

The larger objective is particularly significant at an all-girls school.

McCallum argues that addressing the continued underrepresentation of women in areas such as engineering, technology and entrepreneurship needs to begin well before students reach university.

“Girls need hands-on exposure to engineering, AI, entrepreneurship and venture creation from the primary years through Grade 12, not simply encouragement from the sidelines,” she said.

From an Idea to Something You Can Hold

The difference between learning about technology and actually making something is central to iCAST.

Students now have access to professional-grade fabrication equipment, including CNC routers and multi-colour 3D printers, alongside robotics, media and other technology.

Innovation and Technology Coordinator Coulter Lewis points to a collaboration between Grade 8 students and kindergarten students as an example. The younger students become the “clients,” while their Grade 8 counterparts use materials including wood, metal and acrylic to design and manufacture functional educational toys for them.

Elsewhere, Sports Science students can 3D-print anatomical systems such as a human knee, using different filament colours to distinguish ligaments and joints. Geography students can work with real-world topographical data to construct 3D maps, while members of the robotics team can move directly into the metal shop to fabricate and modify components.

One project takes students through app development with Apple. Students research users and wireframe an application in Design class, develop persuasive writing and presentation skills in English and ultimately pitch their apps to Apple developers.

The result, Lewis said, brings “coding, graphic design, user experience, engineering principles and public speaking into one cohesive project.”

Where Does AI Fit Into the Classroom?

Artificial intelligence is inevitably part of the equation, but Branksome is attempting to position it as a tool rather than a substitute for students’ own work.

“We like to think of AI as a creative amplifier, but human refinement remains essential,” Lewis said.

Students are expected to edit and justify AI-generated material, document their prompts, cite AI output and fact-check what the technology produces.

Students participating in Noodle, Branksome’s entrepreneurship program, are also using a specially trained Flint AI bot to audit their business ideas, allowing them to have a back-and-forth conversation about potential weaknesses and improvements to their concepts.

McCallum believes the growth of AI actually strengthens the case for investing in physical spaces where students can make things.

“While digital tools and AI expand our reach, physical spaces like iCAST ground learning in distinctively human strengths—empathy, tactile creativity, dynamic collaboration, and critical judgment,” she said.

A Theatre That Is Also a Science Lab

Perhaps the clearest example of iCAST’s philosophy is its Studio Theatre.

To an audience, it is a place for plays and performances. To Theatre Educator Angela David, what happens behind the curtain looks remarkably like an applied science laboratory.

“Every production is a living test of physics, engineering and computer science,” David said.

Lighting introduces students to optics, colour science, focal lengths, beam angles and electrical loads. Sound production involves acoustics, wave propagation, resonance, frequency cancellation and digital signal processing. Set construction introduces structural engineering, load-bearing capacity, vector forces, shear stress and materials science.

“The Studio Theatre is one of the few places in a school where science exits the textbook and hits the real world,” David said.

The consequences also make the lessons unusually tangible.

“A theoretical physics mistake on a test might cost you a few points; a physics mistake on stage means the platform collapses or the lights go dark.”

Giving girls access to that side of theatre is intentional.

David noted that technical theatre roles have traditionally been dominated by men. By introducing students to lighting, rigging, electrical engineering and production technology from an early age, she hopes some of the intimidation surrounding technical fields can disappear.

“When our students look at a theatre now, they won’t just see a place to perform,” she said. “They’ll see an industry they’re equipped to build, innovate and lead.”

‘It Almost Feels Like a High-Tech Company’

For Grade 12 student Rome, who has spent most of her school years without iCAST, the change is immediately apparent.

“It doesn’t quite feel like a school; it almost feels like a high-tech company’s resources,” she said.

Rome is particularly interested in film. She can now make props in the wood and metal shops before bringing them into the media studio, while a soundproof recording space and adjacent control room allow her to explore another aspect of filmmaking she had wanted to try for years.

“Having a media studio that is completely soundproof, with a control room directly next to it, makes me feel like I’m learning to make films properly, in a professional setting,” she said.

But when asked what students need most to prepare for the future, Rome’s answer wasn’t coding expertise or proficiency with AI.

It was a willingness to try things.

“Students need exposure to things they haven’t seen before,” she said. “If students are willing to take risks and try things they never thought they would, they’re much closer to developing a richer understanding not only of the world around them, but of who they want to be in the future.”

She is already hearing the effect among her classmates. When someone proposes a club, business or gadget, another student will point out that they now have somewhere to make it happen.

“Well, now we have iCAST, so you can do it there,” Rome recalled students saying.

Giving Students Permission to Imagine

For Christina, a Visual Arts student and writer of Nocturne, the possibilities are just as significant creatively.

One idea for Nocturne involved creating a hologram of a previous art prefect. After speaking with the iCAST team, students determined a hologram would be difficult but began experimenting with projection mapping as an alternative.

For Christina, even being able to entertain ideas like that represents a fundamental shift.

“Having a professional-style theatre means we’re able to dream without guardrails,” she said. “Instead of editing our ideas downward to fit the equipment we have, my mindset has shifted from ‘What can we do within these limitations?’ to ‘What could actually happen?’”

That idea may ultimately be the most important part of iCAST.

The technology is impressive, but the experiment underway at Branksome Hall is less about individual pieces of equipment than what happens when students stop thinking of themselves exclusively as artists, scientists, programmers, entrepreneurs or engineers.

David believes those distinctions have long been more artificial than education has made them appear.

“Science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics aren’t opposing forces—they’re complementary ways of exploring the same physical and social realities,” she said.

Creativity, she argues, is as essential to developing a scientific hypothesis or algorithm as it is to writing a play. Likewise, empathy and storytelling can be critical to designing technology that actually solves human problems.

For McCallum, the real measure of the new centre therefore won’t come this semester, or even this school year.

“Success will be measured by seeing generations of Branksome graduates confidently walk into the rooms where key decisions are made and the future is being shaped,” she said. “We will measure our impact by seeing more young women leading in fields where they have historically been underrepresented—not merely preparing for what comes next, but actively leading, innovating, and driving real-world change.”