Skip to main content

Harvesting an Orchard of Innovative Makers! Orchard School District Teachers share 1st year RAFT Makerspace Experiences

Written by Peter Holley, Middle School Orchard teacher and this year's Makerspace Cohort Lead Teacher

The maker space at Orchard School came into being this year with a community build in October.  Although our space is small, it is well put together and well stocked.  Several teachers have had the opportunity to use the maker space this year and we hope that more teachers will discover the maker space and use it in their lessons in the coming year. 

This year we had a cohort of teachers that was comprised of those that are passionate about making.  We met together monthly to learn how to use the space effectively and to incorporate making into our curriculum.  Each teacher in the cohort used the maker space with their classes and all had a positive experience and indicate that they hope to use it more frequently in the coming year. 
In the cohort we learned about a design process developed at Stanford called “design thinking”.  In this process students first use empathy to learn about the target audience for a design before defining the project and brainstorming ideas.

One of our cohort teachers, Ms. Jackler, used the space for students to build bridges as part of a connection to our “mystery science” curriculum.  Students needed to build bridges to allow a car to pass underneath.

Ms. Jain, another cohort teacher, had her students design and build leprechaun traps.  The students were able to choose from the wide variety of materials in the maker space.  They worked in cooperative groups to solve the problems associated with catching an elusive leprechaun.
Ms. Gould and Ms. Sakoda challenged their students to design a device that would safely allow an egg to be dropped without breaking.

Ms. Sakoda’s class also participated in an activity for students to build a tower using only a limited selection of materials.  Their empathy goal was to make the tower sturdy enough for a character to feel safe while “standing” on it.
We are excited to see the maker space being used and look forward to it becoming an integral part of classrooms across Orchard School! 



Find out more about Orchard School. District at: www.orchardsd.org

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science fairs: Nurturing the 21st century thinker

3D Tessellation model A bespectacled 6th grader enthusiastically explains ‘efficiency of 3D space tessellations’ with myriad equations and handmade tessellation patterns to address the needs of the packaging, storing, shipping and construction industry. Another middle school student, was inspired by his little brother’s telescope and built a simple vacuum chamber using a PVC pipe with a microphone and a speaker on both ends to find out how sound travels on Mars! This 8th grader from Granada Islamic School used an oscilloscope his mother found at an auction to measure the sounds. “I poke around and find junk to build my projects. It’s fun.” Science projects today have become fun for many students as they use more hands on activities to experiment and understand concepts. These two middle school students were among 996 participants at the recent Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship , where RAFT was one of the special judges. Moenes Iskarous, President, S...
18 comments
Read more

How does math relate to real life?

By Jeanne Lazzarini, Math Master Educator/R&D Specialist, RAFT How does math relate to real life?   One way is to take a look at the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree!   You might be surprised to find that many patterns in nature, called fractals, including growth patterns, have very peculiar mathematical properties ---   even though these natural shapes are not perfect spheres, circles, cones, triangles, or even straight lines!  3D Fractals For Inspiration   So, what is a fractal?   Benoit Mandelbrot (November 20, 1924 – October 14, 2010) is commonly called the father of fractals. He created the term “fractal” to describe curves, surfaces and objects that have some very peculiar properties. A fractal is a geometric shape which is both self-similar and has fractional dimension.    Daydreaming fractals Ok, so what does that mean?   Well, “self-similar” means that when you magnify an object, each of...
Post a Comment
Read more

RAFT’s Summer of Fun Includes Camps for Teachers & Kids!

Want to stoke the creative innovator in you and your students?   Ever wonder what it takes to design an engaging project or design challenge? Interested in generating your own project based learning experiences but don’t know where to start?   What does it mean to empower students? Ever think of letting students use power tools?    Then rush to sign up now for this year’s exciting new summer workshops at RAFT! Our summer RAFT “EduCAMP” (for teachers)   http://www.raftbayarea.org/workshops   are ten separate 4 hour workshops taught by RAFT’s master educators, each focusing on creative ways to engage teachers and students to become innovative thinkers and makers! All dates and course titles below are at the San Jose location except July 7 th and 14 th :  ·          July 5 th :     Engagement through Design Thinking ·          July 7 th : ...
Post a Comment
Read more