Bringing Hands-On Learning to Middle School Science with Makerspace Collaborations

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Looking for ways to increase your collaborations with your science teachers? Bring your makerspace into the curriculum! This session will look at a variety of ways that you can collaborate with your science classes and incorporate makerspaces and maker activities into the curriculum. I’ll focus on a year-long collaboration with my 6th grade science classes where the teacher and I led a different maker focused project each quarter that tied in with her curriculum. This included projects on lab safety, earthquakes and weather detection devices. I’ll also share examples of smaller, one-day collaborations I’ve done with science classes. We’ll look at practical examples of ways to collaborate with your science teachers, as well as different makerspace supplies and activities that can help support your science classes. While these examples will be focused on middle school, the concepts and ideas can be applied and adapted to any grade level! If you’re looking for ways to get your classes into the makerspace more in a way that ties in with curriculum, this session is for you.

Check out a recording of the short version of this presentation here:

Resources

Challenge Based Learning in the School Library Makerspace

My book that I co-wrote along with Colleen and Aaron Graves. Much of this presentation is based off of the content of this book, so if you find this presentation valuable, you’ll probably like the book too.

In this book, we go into depth about how to create a maker culture within your school, develop an interactive learning space and more. We discuss the logistics of hosting maker workshops, creating design challenge prompts and documenting the learning process.

Recommended Books

Making Science: Reimagining STEM Education in Middle School and Beyond (My review) <<- Both the teacher and I read this book over the summer, and it has excellent ideas and advice for bringing hands-on making into the science classroom.
Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom <<– The classic Maker text and a must-read.

Our 6th Grade Collaborations:

How to Start a Classroom Makerspace from Scratch <<- This post includes a the process we took in creating a classroom makerspace for this project and what supplies we purchased.
Science + Makerspace: Safety Device Challenge
Science + Makerspace: Earthquake Design Challenge
- YouTube Video on making a Shake Table

Our IDEAlab and Makerspace:

Best Practices:

How to Create Makerspace Organization that Actually Works
How to Choose the Right Makerspace Cart
5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Planning a Makerspace <<– If you’re just getting started, this post will help you brainstorm your makerspace collaboration.

Maker Days themes

Cardboard Challenge Tips Part 1: The Tools << — We use a lot of these tools in our recycled materials projects
Cardboard Challenge Tips Part 2: More Tips and Tricks
How to Teach an Intro to 3D Printing Class

Bringing Hands-On Learning to Middle School Science with Makerspace Collaborations