I taught my first makerspace with the Cascade Cultural Arts Center program last week. this space is geared toward grades 4-12. as opposed to my other maker space that is k-5. Having an older group of students dictates the teaching style and projects that we are able to accomplish.
For our very first day we did some get to know you activities and dove into the theory of makerspace. To tie environmentalism to this program I have decided to make the overall theme sustainability. I feel like it falls right into the ideology of maker space that promotes tinkering, fixing, and being resourceful as opposed to just going out and buying new things. Eventually too we are going to talk about alternate energy sources and hopefully build some solar powered electronics! I also want to tie biomimicry into my lessons as well.
But for now I want the students to get used to the idea of using tools, being creative, and figuring out how things work. As an overall introduction to makerspace I decided to host a toy-take-apart. Basically I came up with some electronic toys and had the students dismantle them and see how they worked. All the way down to the circuit boards. Our next phase will be reconstructing the toys in new ways! Creating out own "franken-toys" as i like to call them. This will allow us to build more tinkering skills and figure out what skills we lack and where to go from here.
