Barrington High School students will be featured at education conference

Two Barrington High School students will be part of a panel discussion this weekend at an education conference in Chicago. INCubatoredu students Maddie Connors and Thomas Colella will be in the Saturday session "How I Learned By Failing" at ASCD Empower19 conference. Virginia-based ASCD is a mission-driven nonprofit dedicated to excellence in learning, teaching and leading. In the Barrington High entrepreneurship program, Connors and Colella created PowerPod, a disposable, biodegradable power source for Android or iPhones. The idea was sparked by a need for an emergency power source when Connors found herself at a large venue concert without cellphone juice. The panel discussion will focus on how high school entrepreneurship programs are suited to teach students how to get through failure fast. "When you fail in regular classes, you're failing within a simulation but when you fail within an INCubatoredu class, you're failing within the realm of real life," Connors said.