Launching October 2025
Jazz Lab™ 2.0 brings hands-on creativity and real-world skills into middle schools that need it most. Designed for rural and under-resourced districts, this mobile, one-day STEAM experience blends live jazz, science, and design to spark curiosity and show how learning connects to future careers.
Building on the success of Jazz Lab™ Mobile, this next phase sharpens delivery, strengthens CTE partnerships, and expands access — with a stronger focus on career readiness and transferable skills.
Each 4.5-hour session engages up to 60 students (ages 11–14) through rotating, immersive stations where artistic expression meets STEM learning.
All sessions are led by trained STEAM professionals who combine technical expertise with culturally responsive, student-centered instruction. Lunch is included, along with time for reflection, dialogue, and creative processing.
Its mobile format ensures equitable enrichment access for students in Licking and Fairfield counties—regions often left out of statewide STEM initiatives. It also enables data collection and storytelling to inform scalable models for middle school career exploration across Ohio.
By meeting students where they are—emotionally, academically, and geographically—Jazz Lab™ 2.0 delivers a joyful, high-energy approach to workforce readiness that builds creative confidence for the long haul.
Jazz Lab™ 2.0 Sessions
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Sciences of Sound
ART & SCIENCE
Students step inside the music to uncover the physics of rhythm and harmony. With guitar, upright bass, drums, and even their own voices, they explore vibration, energy, pitch, timbre, and resonance through dynamic demonstrations and hands-on stations.
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Improvisational Design
ENGINEERING
Using everyday materials like cardboard, rubber bands, string, and tape, students become inventors of sound. In small teams, they prototype, test, and refine original instruments — discovering how design, iteration, and collaboration create harmony.
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Virtual Reality Musicmaking
TECHNOLOGY
Students leap into the future of music-making with the Virtuoso VR app. In this fully immersive lab, they play digital instruments in virtual space and take the spotlight in a VR film that drops them into the heart of a live jazz quintet.
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Pixel Beats Lab (COMING SOON)
ENGINEERING + TECHNOLOGY
Video game soundtracks come alive as students step into the role of game composers. Using beat pads, they layer rhythms, build moods, and reshape gameplay energy — seeing firsthand how music drives the stories they already play.
Stephanie Matthews, Executive Director, A Tribe for Jazz
“At a time when too many students in rural and under-resourced communities are left out of meaningful STEAM opportunities, our goal is simple: light the spark of curiosity, connect it to opportunity, and show students in every corner of Ohio that they belong in the future of innovation.”
Meet Our Partners
What Our Partners are Saying
Jennifer Blackstone, Assistant Superintendent, Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools
“Jazz Lab™ 2.0 gives middle school students a hands-on, creative way to see how their interests can connect to real opportunities in STEAM fields. By meeting students early with engaging, immersive experiences, we’re helping them build confidence and envision pathways that can carry them into high school, higher education, and beyond.”
Jayme Blackstone, Career Development Coordinator,
C-TEC of Licking County
“For career tech educators, Jazz Lab™ 2.0 creates a positive, exploratory environment where middle school students can begin connecting creativity to career pathways. “By meeting them with music and imagination, we can ignite interest in design, technology, and engineering — and help students envision futures they hadn’t imagined."
Contact us.
Interested in bringing Jazz Lab™ 2.0 to your school or program? Are you a funder seeking to support school district with innovative programming?Or want to learn more about collaboration opportunities? We’d be glad to connect.
Please reach out, and a member of our team will follow up promptly.
📩 SMatthews@atribeforjazz.org