Creating Maker-Culture in the Classroom and the Community

Reflecting on the ideals, pragmatic possibilities and real-world challenges of creating a sustainable maker-culture in my classroom I find one key ingredient which is absolutely necessary for success which has not really been touched on directly. The key ingredient is passion. Passion for the project and subject matter, and passion to engage students in new ways.

In a previous blog post I mentioned the success of funding my classroom hydroponics project in a short time and I am sure this was due to my high degree of enthusiasm for growing vegetables, and for learning new ways to grow indoors. Because of my own passion for the subject the project sparked curiosity in my students. However, I have not yet created many lesson plans that directly link this project to the curriculum in my math classes.

I was able to use the growing seedlings to discuss rate of change, and we used proportions to mix nutrients to the desired levels, but there is so much potential here for STEM related teaching and cross-disciplinary lessons that I know I will continue this project in my classroom. Growing in the classroom improves the classroom environment for my students and myself and it has seeded (pun intended) a longer term vision not only for my classroom, but also for the potential benefits to the community I live in.

My school is in Tununak, a small village on the Bering Sea coast with a population of just over 300 people mostly Native Alaskan. Several community members who come to the school have shown enthusiasm for the project and I am looking for new ways to engage the community in this aspect of maker-culture in my classroom. My dream and ideal is to experiment with various forms of indoor growing and to inspire interest in a community-based school greenhouse that could supply fresh vegetables to the village.

Photo linked from the Redoubt Reporter

Some of the people in the community have grown vegetables indoors and some remember teachers who grew small gardens in the Summer. But agriculture is not a traditional aspect of the local culture which is more attuned to hunting and gathering for subsistence. So I intend to continue to to integrate growing more into my curriculum while researching grant opportunities and promoting local interest. In my opinion maker-culture works best when students are led by their own curiosity and when they see the real value to the community

Certainly there is value in virtual maker-spaces like the Minecraft collaborations I learned about at the Virtual Learning Conference. And I plan to implement a number of technology-based maker spaces that fit my core-curriculum, possibly including the Arduino system or paper circuitry, once I have done enough preparation and experimentation to approach these projects with knowledge and enthusiasm. With a full set of mathematics classes next year from 6th grade through high school I will have ample opportunities to integrate with the math, science and technology curricula.

As a music lover and woodwind player I am also very passionate about the potential for integrating music, math and science in some of my lessons this year. I have purchased a recorder to practice for my own enjoyment, and because I know we already have a full classroom set of student recorders at the school which is not being used. Potential lessons could include study of proportions in the octaves, number theory and the concepts of frequency and wave theory. I know that there is enthusiasm for music from many students and music represents a gap in our school's elective offerings.

One more area where maker-culture could play a part in my classes in the future is related to the Alaska Water Sewer Challenge, a state initiative to find new innovative solutions to the problems related to honey-buckets and lack of running water in rural Alaska. One of my senior robotics students last year inspired my to create a proposal that I submitted to the Samsung STEM competition involving researching and prototyping sewage systems for rural Alaska homes. My proposal was one of five Alaskan schools that was considered from the state entries, but did not proceed to the national level.

It is a fairly ambitious project that will require a lot of planning and community involvement, but I will look for ways to engage my students in the process since they are all directly affected by the issues involved. One way I will do this is by following the results of the state initiative listed above that are being shared at a conference this Fall, Conference on Water Innovations for Healthy Arctic Homes.

My goal is to engage students with relevant projects that may also become community-based. Realizing that I more easily create projects in areas that I am passionate about I will also look for and create maker-projects that are open-ended and student-driven so that they may find areas that they are passionate about. I have ambitious and far-reaching goals, but  I will create an implementation plan that is practical for my current teaching situation and student-base.