ORANGE — Four Fisher Hill Elementary School students are heading to Gillette Stadium on Wednesday, but it won’t be to check out Drake Maye’s progress as the New England Patriots quarterback.
Six-graders Aliahmya Laza, Ethan Prescott, Promise Allen and Morgan Bezio will join STEM teacher Craig Newton in Foxborough for the MassCUE Annual Fall Conference, a technology event featuring workshops, panels, playgrounds and student presentations. Fisher Hill, one of 10 schools in the state that filed an application chosen for its innovation, relevance and potential to inspire educators, will be represented by its student presenters.
“We’re re-exploring how they designed the school,” Newton said. “So we explored the design process. So it started with, ‘What’s the physical layout?’ ‘What did they have to do?'”
Fisher Hill’s presentation is called “Orange Elementary Designs a School” and will highlight a scaled cardboard model of the building, multiple 3D computer-aided designs, perspective drawings, and demonstrations on the techniques used throughout the process.
A renovated, 97,000-square-foot Fisher Hill opened to students in September 2023, complete with a three-story, approximately 50,000-square-foot addition. The project included demolition of the longstanding adjacent Dexter Park Innovation School, which was built in the early 1950s.
Newton said Finley Merrill acted as project manager and walked throughout the school alongside him as one way of gathering measurements for a cardboard rendering of the school.
Fisher Hill School 6th grade student Ellianna Terry with a rendering of Gillette Stadium. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ 
Fisher Hill School 6th grade student William Minor with an architectural rendering of the school. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ 
Fisher Hill School 6th grade student Zeighden Favreau points to the perspective drawing he made of the school. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ 
Fisher Hill School 6th grade student Finley Merrill with the model of the school that she took the lead on creating. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ
“So we worked on Google Maps. We used the satellite view, and we took physical measurements from the satellite view,” Newton said. “You click the ‘Measure’ button, and we just measured this wall, that wall, that one — that’s where the dimensions from the school came from.”
Newton’s students converted feet to millimeters for the cardboard rendering, which was built at a 3:1 scale. Work started about five weeks ago, according to Merrill. Morgan mentioned she enjoyed the project but initially thought she would struggle.
Autumn Barrett is working on a rendering of the school’s playground, which Newton mentioned is likely more challenging than the school itself.
Newton said Aliahmya, Ethan, Promise and Morgan were picked for their leadership and work ethic.
“It’s what they bring, as far as being representatives of the school and being able to give back to the next generation of students,” he explained. “That’s why they were selected, each and every one of them.”
The four chosen students said they are looking forward to visiting Gillette Stadium to show off their work.
“I thought the project was really fun to do,” Ethan said.
“But it was also hard work,” Promise chimed in.
Newton estimates “600 kid hours” went into the project.
“I probably got work out of 50 of [the 75 six-graders],” he said.