Designing a School Makerspace. Makerspaces, STEAM labs and fab labs are popping up in schools across the country. Makerspaces provide hands-on, creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent as they deeply engage in science, engineering and tinkering. A makerspace is not solely a science lab, woodshop, computer lab or art room, but it may contain elements found in all of these familiar spaces.
Therefore, it must be designed to accommodate a wide range of activities, tools and materials. Diversity and cross-pollination of activities are critical to the design, making and exploration process, and they are what set makerspaces and STEAM labs apart from single-use spaces. A possible range of activities might include: Cardboard construction Prototyping Woodworking Electronics Robotics Digital fabrication Building bicycles and kinetic machines Textiles and sewing Designing a space to accommodate such a wide range of activities is a challenging process.
Ask the Right Questions Going Forward. Hammerspace Workshop. Original Proposal - Ravenswood Makerspace Collaborative. Ravenswood Makerspace Collaborative Proposal Objective Ravenswood students will have exposure to a variety of STEM opportunities to support developing his/her passion before entering high school. Middle school and upper elementary students will have the chance to deepen their competencies with advanced STEM opportunities. Program Provide at least three (3) lunchtime and/or after school introductory STEM opportunities for students at all sites, housed within a Makerspace, or design lab, on campus. These opportunities will include: Programming/CodingEngineering/RoboticsDesign Thinking Extended STEM opportunities in all three areas will allow students whose interests were sparked in the introductory STEM opportunities to develop further competencies. Goal Expose at least 700 students to programming/coding, robotics, and design thinking per year.
Timeline 2014-2015: Full introductory and extended STEM opportunities across all school sites. Budget Non-Consumables & one-time purchases Technology Space. Creating Makerspaces in Schools. Two weekends ago, I attended EdCamp NYC at The School at Columbia, an independent school on Manhattan's Upper West Side. One of the things I love about attending edcamps is that the day is always unpredictable because you don't know what will be discussed or who will be leading conversations until that morning. What ensued was an inspiring day focused on tinkering, exploration and innovation. A Day of Play and Exploration The day began with a discussion led by Don Buckley, The School's Director of Technology and Innovation, focused on design thinking in schools.
Buckley used projects completed at The School to illustrate the various stages of design thinking, which include defining a problem, researching and creating a solution and a prototype, and implementing the solution. The day ended with a session on 3D printing run by Don Buckley and Jaymes Dec. Design thinking, tinkering and exploring, designing and creating . . . Why Makerspaces? Bringing Makerspaces into Schools More on Makerspaces. Making a Makerspace: Peek Inside My Plans | attempts at using tech effectively in our classrooms. On October 1st I started on my efforts toward creating a set of Makerspaces in our school district. I immediately jumped into visiting the d.school at Stanford, collecting every book I could on the topic, and applied to attend the FabLearn conference.
A Makerspace has been my goal since the first day I started as STEM Coordinator last year, so when I was recently given the flexibility and permission to move forward, I jumped on the opportunity immediately. Now, what I’m going to lay out here is my vision, supported by numerous individuals, conference sessions, and books. I’ll include a list of resources I’ve referred to at the end. When I’m finished, I’m hoping you’ll have a good idea of what I’m doing and can give me some great feedback – be it the programs we use, companies I should reach out to, or something I need to fully rethink. First of all, the vision and mission of the Makerspace Collaborative: How do I plan to get there?
RMC Pins Instruction for courses will come from: Like this: