Similar to his Maker VISTA colleague Jamera Jones in Atlanta, Maker VISTA member Alvin Heido has come up against some promotion- and buy-in building obstacles in his work at CSUSM STEM Center. In order to spread word and awareness of the Center’s programming, and to recruit undergraduate students to participate in the Community Service Learning […]

January at Salmon Public Library was a big month for middle schoolers. Amidst adults-versus-kids dodgeball games (totally fair) and discovering that, 13 years later, Panic! At The Disco is still a preteen music phenomenon, the Salmon VISTA team has shared knowledge, built partnerships and developed new resources for making make happen. Lemhi’s After-School Promise (LASP), […]

For the culmination of a month-long 3rd and 4th grade expedition on Natural Occurrences, Maker VISTA member Anna Grossi developed making projects based on Housing and Civil Engineering. Along with two classroom teachers, Anna created two design challenges relevant to the Bay Area and to the state of California for the students to explore, with […]

ReCreate’s mission for the new year is to engage participating families, students, and teachers and build stronger connections. Maker VISTA member Trina Lafata thought working with students from ReCreate’s after-school programs would be a great place to start. Trina began sending out weekly emails to parents of the participating students, including a brief statement of what […]

One of the goals of the Maker Education elective class at San Fernando Middle School this year was to get students involved in composting. Maker VISTA members Lyna Abal and Carey Habiger wanted to provide students with the opportunity to create their own composting bins, learn about the environmental benefits of composting, and to take […]

At STE(A)M Truck in Atlanta, Maker VISTA member Jamera Jones has been in the throes of building an internship program from the ground up. To ensure that the organization obtains best-fit interns, Jamera began her process by building relationships with nearby colleges and universities, including Georgia State University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Emory University. Perhaps […]

In January, Maker VISTA member Khalil Pettway helped facilitate a Maker Night for the Drew Charter School’s Elementary Academy. For the Maker Night, Khalil and staff members guided students and parents through a button-making activity. Though the activity was simple and straightforward, the event itself was a bit more stressful to manage, as it was the […]

In the final days of 2017, students, educators, and the Maker VISTA members of Grass Valley Elementary School in Oakland celebrated the culmination of their first-semester maker-centered learning unit with their very own ComiCon. As a marker of the impressive accomplishment of now having every classroom and student in the school engaged in making, the […]

The last months of 2017 were booming at Drew Charter School in Atlanta, capping off a first school semester that found Maker VISTA member Khalil Pettway facing challenges many maker educators face: enough work and responsibilities for at least two people, being done by one. For Khalil, making as the year wrapped up was less […]

As 2017 came to an end, Maker VISTA members Jamera Jones and Lauren Schramm worked towards strengthening their own maker skills, supporting program implementation, and exploring inventory management. Keeping storage space organized and supplies stocked has been an ongoing challenge at STE(A)M Truck, as with so many makerspaces or mobile making set-ups. The combination of limited […]