How Maker-centered learning is critical to the fight against COVID-19
Some of Citizen Schools’ April 28th Make For All Call speakers
With 124,000 U.S. public and private schools closed and 51 million students impacted, the effects of COVID-19 can be felt far and wide. Our making communities have stepped up to the challenge in critical ways to continue maker-centered learning and to apply capacity and resources to support healthcare workers and first responders.
April 28th’s Make For All Community Call centered on how maker educators and students are responding to COVID-19. Six different groups of maker leaders, educators and students presented a short update on how they quickly adapted to facility closures. Partnerships emerged with other community organizations and local businesses to source 3D printers, supplies for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and volunteers to make and deliver critical supplies to healthcare workers.
The need has been so great that it has also brought together generations of makers. Erica Compton from the Idaho STEM Action Center, part of Maker + Mentor’s Network’s Community of Practice, assembled teams of sewists to make face masks, many of whom are aged 60+. Compton is the co-organizer of #IdahoMakersUnite, a state-wide effort to empower makers of all ages to help meet the demand for PPE.
Two students from Sierra College also shared their work, including Alliya Smith-Brown, part of the inaugural class of Citizen School’s Maker Fellows. Alliya and Kai Ulrich took home 3D printers to continue their work remotely printing PPE face shields as part of Operation Shields Up, a movement of volunteers to get PPE into the hands of front line responders.
STEM Schools Chattanooga's Digital Fabrication Ecosystem created an impressive 7,199 face shields for healthcare workers.
Kristin Burrus, Digital Fabrication Ecosystem Lead for STEM School Chattanooga, and her team pulled together the 3D printers from the Fab Labs across Hamilton County Schools and got special permission from the school board and the district superintendent so that they could be on-site to produce and distribute PPE. Kristin’s team leveraged headbands donated from Under Armour after a Twitter appeal, married that with local businesses for CNC cutting, and used 63 printers and 60 volunteers from across the region for truly crowd-sourced manufacturing. Their group created a two-shift schedule of 5-8 volunteers for safe social distancing, while they manufactured a total of 7,199 face shields...despite a tornado in Tennessee in the midst of production.
To help students continue learning, Eric Saliim of North Carolina Central University Fab Lab, in Durham NC, provided access to cloud-based and web-based platforms. Students and mentors of all ages (up through their 70s) can continue coding and 3D design remotely. NCCCU Fab Lab is part of the network of 1,700+ Fab Labs around the world.
Zack Dowell, from Folsom Lake College’s Innovation Center Maker space, shared the range of PPE they created from shields to face masks to ear savers. They also supplied PPE to children and adults, including vulnerable populations in shelters. Folsom Lake College, along with North Carolina Central University, Hamilton County Schools, Sierra College and the Idaho STEM Action Center are all host sites for our new Maker Fellows program, helping their communities build capacity for making.
BLDG61 provides face shields and masks to Boulder, including Spanish translated tutorials.
Boulder Public Library’s BLDG 61 had to close its physical maker space, but Zack Weaver and other team members have been able to leverage the technology in the space to produce face masks and face shields, while posting online tutorial videos. BLDG 61 has also been working on providing WiFi hotspots and service to more than 200 students in the community that need it in order to learn from home.
This Make For All conversation shed light on several important aspects about the efforts of individuals and organizations within the maker education community during this unprecedented time:
Students are experiencing how the maker mindset and skills are critical to solving problems in their communities and helping people that they care about.
Organizations and institutions are leveraging long standing relationships in their communities to develop new ways of working together that are enabling students to more effectively learn at home and to serve vulnerable populations, essential workers and healthcare workers.
These activities have created additional opportunities for intergenerational making, bringing together makers across a broad range of age groups to learn from one another and work together.