It's hard to believe that we are into Season 3 of sharing maker ideas and highlighting schools who are encouraging their students to be makers. There are 22 different Think, Make, Innovate episodes out there waiting for you to take up the challenge. As always, you can complete any challenge in any order you want to best fit your students' creativity. We have recently reorganized our Think, Make, Innovate page into maker themes, like No or Low Tech Challenges or Coding Challenges to help you easily find maker challenges for your students.
A part of every episode, either the students or Jason and I will say, "We Challenge You" to encourage students in Iowa or anywhere to take up the maker challenge. We've added so many schools from across the state (and a few other states as well) to our online maker community. It's been super inspiring to see!!
A huge surprise for us has been how you have empowered yourselves to challenge each other!
Check out rockstar librarian, Chelsea Sims & her maker crew (@sejhlibrary on Instagram - if you are not following you are missing out) challenge other schools in her district to take up a cardboard challenge.

And then, there are these two inspiring teachers, Gina Miller (@ginabeckmiller) from Belle Plaine and Manda Marshall (@mw_techlabA) from Mary Welsh Elementary in Williamsburg. Their story of collaboration is so fun and authentically awesome. Coming from two different school districts, crossing paths through professional development and being inspired and by each other. They had an idea to bring their students together for Bot Smackdown Challenge Day and it all came together yesterday. It was an amazing day of collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity for these students. I was overjoyed to be able to help be a part of it and capture it to share in the NEXT episode of Think, Make, Innovate coming out in January. Click here to subscribe to our mailing list if you want to be notified of future episodes like this one!
Listen to them tell their story, and tune in to their Think, Make, Innovate Episode in January!
We'd love to hear from you, share your students' work on our maker community, or collaborate with you on a future Think, Make, Innovate episode! We love to see you tag us on social media or use #havefunmaking to share the fun and joy of making that your students are involved in.
Leave us a comment and let us know how your school is moving forward with the maker movement.