This book contains project ideas, articles, and best practices from educators at the forefront of making and hands-on education. The Stanford University FabLearn Fellows are a group of K-12 educators teaching in Fab Labs, makerspaces, classrooms, libraries, community centers, and museums—all with the goal of making learning more meaningful.
In this book, the FabLearn Fellows share inspirational ideas from their learning spaces, assessment strategies and recommended projects across a broad range of age levels. Illustrated with color photos of real student work, the Fellows take you on a
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Paulo BliksteinSylvia Libow MartinezHeather Allen Pang
The maker movement has evoked interest for its role in breaking down barriers to STEM learning. However, few empirical studies document how youth are supported over time, in STEM-rich making projects or their outcomes. This longitudinal critical ethnographic study traces the development of 41 youth maker projects in two community-centered making programs. Building a conceptual argument for an equity-oriented culture of making, the authors discuss the ways in which making with and in community opened opportunities for youth to project their communities’ rich culture knowledge and wisdom onto
This is a supplement to an article that appeared in the March/April 2016 issue of Dimensions magazine. We asked science centers, museums, and aquariums to share how they are making their facilities and their practices more green and energy efficient, and how they have used these efforts to educate their visitors and communities about energy efficiency and sustainability.
In this chapter, we explore making as a learning process in the context of a museum-based maker space designed for family participation. In particular, we focus on young children, and their adult learning partners, as an important demographic to consider and for which to design making environments and experiences. Importantly, we take a close look at the evolving role of museum educators in supporting young children's meaningful participation in making as an informal learning process. Through the presentation of a single case of a child's making in the museum, we identify key factors that
In considering the integration of technology in the classroom it is necessary to factor in the ways in which teachers design for their use. Makerspaces and their use of digitally-based rapid prototyping tools such as laser cutters and 3D printers are serving as new models for technology integration in learning environments. While there has been some research on the educational affordances of such technologies little research has been done to understand their use in the traditional classroom environment by teachers. This paper explores the design of curricular and instructional activities by
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Christian McKayTarrence BanksScott Wallace
In this essay, Shirin Vossoughi, Paula Hooper, and Meg Escude advance a critique of branded, culturally normative definitions of making and caution against their uncritical adoption into the educational sphere. The authors argue that the ways making and equity are conceptualized can either restrict or expand the possibility that the growing maker movement will contribute to intellectually generative and liberatory educational experiences for working-class students and students of color. After reviewing various perspectives on making as educative practice, they present a framework that treats
As a leader in the science museum field, the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) is a destination for hands-on, interactive exhibitions and innovative programs. NYSCI’s Design-Make-Play (DMP) pedagogical approach to STEM learning recognizes that what is essential is not only the content—what is being taught—but how teaching and learning are imagined through the curriculum. This commitment to practice builds off of interest-based learning research, which emphasizes that all learners should feel a sense of efficacy and possibility. The hallmarks of this approach include deep personal engagement
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Amanda SolarshGina TesorieroMichaela LabrioleTara Chudoba
In this paper we investigated the role youth participatory ethnography played as a pedagogical approach to supporting youth in making. To do so, we examined in-depth cases of youth makers from traditionally marginalized communities in two makerspace clubs in two different mid-sized US cities over the course of three years. Drawing from mobilities of learning studies and participatory frameworks, our findings indicate that participatory ethnography as pedagogical practice repositioned youth and making by helping to foreground youths’ relationality to people, communities, activities and
This paper argues that for citizens to be engaged with science they need to be able to share analytical techniques as well as the results of analyses. The category of "brand" which condenses the instrumental with the symbolic is both powerful in its uses and familiar to laypeople. The paper shows briefly how the categories of penicillin, biotechnology and applied science can be analysed in this way. It suggests that historians apply such an approach to the historiography of such new categories as synthetic biology and that this might be useful to curators of such topics in museums.
This paper discusses the concepts and practice of museum conservation, and the role of conservation in preserving both material and significance of objects. It explores the conservation of science and industry collections and the fact that the significance of many of these objects lies in their operation. It considers alternatives to operating original objects but emphasises the value of experiencing the real thing, and argues that visitors should be given greater physical access to museum objects, including being enabled to handle and work functioning objects. It finishes by calling for
This article concerns the conservation of historic doped fabric aeroplanes in the static museum setting of the Science Museum’s Flight gallery. It reviews historic sources, primarily archival and scientific research papers, to examine what doped fabric aeroplanes are made from, and why these materials were selected. It also discusses current conservation methods used for treating tears in the doped fabric covering of aeroplanes, and considers the ethical and practical limitations of these practices. An overview of the doped fabric aircraft collection currently held by the Science Museum is
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ben RegelJannicke LangfeldtLouisa BurdenMary Ryan
In December the Science Museum will open Mathematics: The Winton Gallery. The new gallery tells mathematical stories in relation to a broad spectrum of fundamental human concerns. One of the key exhibits is a newly acquired machine for modelling storm surges in the North Sea. Designed by Japanese engineer Shizuo Ishiguro, the object offers a way to explore the far-reaching impact and relevance of mathematical work.