In May 2015, the Maker VISTA community will welcome four new sites and six VISTA members to join its vision in transforming education for poverty-stricken communities.
The Maker VISTA Project is transforming education nationwide for youth disadvantaged by poverty through Maker Education. The project’s ambitious mission will be strengthened in scale and reach with the addition of four educational partners spanning California to Tennessee. VISTA Members, Volunteers in Service to America, will commit one year to working alongside a vetted partner organization to build their capacity and foster collective impact by designing program infrastructure, expanding partnerships, securing resources, organizing Maker Education training, and linking communities to the larger Maker Movement.
Please join us in welcoming new partners of Maker Ed and new sites forMaker VISTA. Learn more about them here:
ART 120 in Chattanooga, TN is an organization created to enrich Chattanooga and it’s community through the creation, education and celebration of A.R.T. – Awareness between community, artist, educators and non-profits within a 120 mile radius around Chattanooga, Reaching out to public and underserved schools through free art events, Teaching STEAM based workforce development skills to urban youth through mechanical sculpture.
La Escuelita of Oakland, CA, offers a Spanish/English bilingual program option for students in Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. They believe that children should enjoy school, take risks, and be the best of who they are. They emphasize providing opportunities to learn and practice leadership, kindness, respect, responsibility, courage, and self awareness.
In Los Angeles, CA, we are working with Los Angeles Education Partnership, to identify community schools for the Maker VISTA project. LAEP is an education nonprofit that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities to foster great schools that support the personal and academic success of children and youth from birth through high school. They are known for proven, effective programs and collaboration that is responsive to student needs.
Our VISTA members will be placed throughout multiple schools — specifically San Fernando Middle School and Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Middle School. Both schools are committed to the success of all students academically, socially, and emotionally as they develop responsible citizens who are college prepared and career ready, life-long learners for the 21st Century.
Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto, CA is using a Makerspace Collaborative initiative to open a Makerspace at every school site in their district by the start of the 2015-16 school year. The Makerspace initiative supports students in all grades and in all schools in coding, robotics, and general tinkering. It serves as a student-centered learning environment for students to access and master those STEM skills that have been neglected so long in many public schools, especially those that serve low-income, minority populations. The Ravenswood Makerspace Collaborative, the partnership of Makerspaces across all seven school sites, has been named a Silicon Valley Education Foundation 2014 STEM Innovation Award winner and the 2015 Microsoft KCI (Krause Center for Innovation) Innovation Grand Prize Winner.
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