The oldest school in Maine, Berwick Academy opened its new Makerspace at the start of the 2014 school year in a room that was formerly a faculty lounge. The new space is being housed in the middle school building, and will service students of all ages.
The Makerspace was made possible by two donors from the local Berwick community as well as the middle school faculty who donated time over the summer to convert the room into a colorful and inspirational space with all the tools that a young maker-to-be could ever want or need.
The space will house state of the art electronics like 3D printers, 3D scanners, robotics kits, circuitry and e-textiles. It will also offer programming resources, sewing machines, as well as tools and supplies for construction and fabrication. Middle school students can access the Makerspace at recess and lunch as well as after school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 1st through 4th graders will also be able to access the Makerspace during an Innovation Junior after school program.
“The objective of the Makerspace at Berwick Academy is to strengthen a mindset and culture of creativity, collaboration, trust, resilience and problem solving in our community. In our Makerspace, individuals are inspired to learn by doing. Questions are more valued than answers and, through investment in opportunities to become innovative producers rather than passive consumers of data and resources, we strive to develop the capacity to think constructively and participate richly in our world.” reads the Berwick Makerspace mission statement.
“I believe that students will learn, they will invent, they will collaborate, they will persevere when they are empowered to follow their interests,” Middle School science teacher Marc Small told Seacoast Online. “For me, the Makerspace is a judgment-free zone where students are able to act on their own curiosity and experiment playfully; thus encouraging the pursuit and application of useful knowledge.”
Just a year ago Makerspaces like this would be hard to find in a high school setting, much less a middle school setting. However educators are quickly learning that 3D printing is a great way to engage their students and get them interested in science and technology. As Texas educator Martha Slack said in a great column from last May “3D printing will revolutionize learning because it lends itself to low-risk, low-cost innovation. Since ideas can materialize within minutes, students can see their work as tangible products. When students have access to 3D printing, abstract concepts in science and mathematics have the potential to be transformed into concrete (plastic) visuals.”
I genuinely believe that desktop 3D printing is made for the classroom. Not only does it allow students to begin to grasp the future of manufacturing before it’s even here, but it allows them to participate in the very process of developing it. Children are the ones who have to live in the world when we’re gone, so why shouldn’t they have a say in shaping it?
