The Lab for Teen Thinkers is a free year-long public humanities program for rising juniors and seniors presented by Bard Graduate Center. The summer intensive offers teens the unique opportunity to study with a variety of scholars, curators, and PhD students working in the intersections of material culture, decorative arts, and design history. Teens learn about career pathways in museum education, library sciences, archaeology, conservation, and curatorial studies. The summer intensive culminates with teens conducting research projects and sharing their ideas with community audiences. Upon successful completion of the summer program, teens receive a generous stipend and move into phase two of the program.

Teens in the 2021 summer intensive will research objects and artifacts related to Seneca Village, a 19th century community of predominantly African-Americans, many of whom owned property, in what is now Central Park.