The Essence of a Makerspace

I first heard about the maker movement last summer.  I initially thought that this was a direct arm of the STEAM movement to incorporate arts into science, technology, engineering and math.  It has been part of my own genius hour to continue to explore and learn more about the maker movement.  Here’s a little about the path that I’ve followed so far...

I started off this fall by reading the book, Invent to Learn by Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary Stager.  From this book, I gained a better understanding of the mentality of this movement.  The emphasis on inquiry and curiosity is what really sparked my interest as a science teacher.  There were so many resources and ideas shared in this book, I really lucked out that this is where I began my journey.

Also, I visited the Milwaukee Makerspace on a quick field trip.  It is a great resource for the Milwaukee community.  It is a huge space designed to provide members with ample resources and a space to collaborate and create.  There are about 200 members that share their talents and resources in this space.

In Milwaukee, the variety of resources available, and the community spirit made this a place to empower makers.  Everyone in this space shares materials, ideas, and knowledge which is vital for nourishing the maker spirit.

This spring, I checked out the Cedar Rapids Mini Makerfaire, housed at the new Cedar Rapids Makerspace.  It was a showcase of efforts and passion projects that included students’ efforts.  It was interesting to see the products that students and people have created based on their imagination and improved by their prototypes.  This new space is a great opportunity for the Cedar Rapids community to tap into their inner inventor.

But, even in all of my steps, I still felt uncertain of what a makerspace should be... until this week.   At Grant Wood AEA, we have been working to put together a teacher makerspace.  We hosted tech coaches from local schools to get a sneak peak of our makerspace and share the maker movement with them.

From this, I better understood that a collaborative community is the essence of a makerspace.  In all of my other experiences, I was on the outside looking in.  This week, I was able to be a part of our makerspace community.  Tech consultants shared some basic knowledge to get them started and this small step led to deeper inventiveness. We kept creating and building off of each other’s knowledge, questions, trials and errors.  It was collaborative.  It was an encouraging environment.  It ignited that spark of excitement that when you learn something new and you just can’t wait to share that with someone else.  It is just the kind of learning environment that I hope all of our students can experience at school.

I know that schools are starting to take steps towards creating makerspaces in schools.  What is your school doing?  How are you encouraging your students to be makers?  Post a comment and let us know about your makerspace dreams or how it is starting to become a reality.  We’d love to learn more about what you are doing!  

We are continually working to understand the maker movement, follow our Makerspace Flipboard to find more resources about makerspaces.

~Amber Bridge, Technology Consultant
@abridgesmith


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