Teacher Feature: Tips for creating maker spaces in your classroom

In this series, we will feature teachers who are infusing sustainability lessons and practices into their classrooms. In our first story, we interviewed Ms. Stacie Watson, an elementary educator from Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa, Florida.

​Last Summer, Stacie Watson attended a professional development session on how to create a maker space in your classroom. The problems with traditional maker spaces is that they can get expensive, especially if you buy some of the pre-made kits. How can you do this without breaking the bank? Stacie was able to protect her pocketbook and the environment at the same time, and it was amazing. Think about it. You have a lot of resources in your house. What do you normally throw in the garbage or recycling that can be used again? 

Once she got it started, the kids took over. They would regularly come in with piles of beautiful junque (that's fancy for junk). If you buy it, it usually gets thrown away. But when when they bring something in, they start thinking about how they can reuse things again and again. Much of what Stacie does is based in grade-level standards in science. In addition, she provides activities that review previous standards.

• They created an instrument for Jack (the beanstalk guy) that changes pitch and volume from our workshop Once Upon a Design 2.
• They designed a spider web that would catch a spider launched by the Spidey-pult (catapult for spiders).
• They designed a maze that used only gravity to get a ball from the start to the end.

To begin, Stacie provided a message to parents about materials they could use: fabric, cereal boxes, water bottles, bottle caps (good for wheels). Within a week she had enough to get her started! Stacie also received materials like: scraps of paper, sea shells, beads, stickers, etc. In addition, she provided some fastener materials. While she used recycled elastic bands, you might also need tape, string, glue, and a stapler (try a staple-less stapler).

This is how the materials are organized in the maker spaces.

Designing the maze.

During this activity, Stacie instructed the students to create a maze for Students used a yard stick to make their grids for measuring. The requirement for the mouse to go in the maze was 5X5 inches. Science, they were including the food chain: predators of the mouse and food that the mouse would eat. They used cereal boxes and paper towel rolls to create their mazes. 

How can you feature recycled items in your maker space?
1) for student use
2) once they create or invent a good, how can you use it in your classroom? 

Reusing materials like lego and snap cubes, etc. Plastics and long term vs short term use. Reusable plastics vs single use plastics.

The mouse found its way through this team's maze. After the mouse got through the maze, the students started talking about how they could redesign the maze to make it more challenging. BTW, the light blue t-shirt was designed by fifth grade students.

The light blue t-shirt was designed by fifth grade students!

This team put it on hypermode, which makes it go faster, but it didn't seem to follow the steps you programmed. It definitely ran over some of the barriers along the way! Time for some redesign!

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In addition to challenges that Ms. Watson provides for her students, based on standards, sometimes students still have their own questions so she inspires them to design something to solve the problem. For example, this student built a contraption that used gravity to toss a ball. This was part of an investigation that had to do with gravity and the height of the object and the gravitational force it would have and how it would cause an object to move. She allowed them to conduct experiments at home and brought them back to school. The ball is on the kitchen spoon (where her hand is). She dropped something over to the side that would lift up the spoon and toss the ball.