National Week of Making
It’s time to celebrate National Week of Making. This is a week to celebrate the maker movement and the creative elements that foster an interest in STEM. National Week of Making was created by Nation of Makers. Celebrating this week supports, encourages, promotes, and highlights organizations who are working to create more opportunities for more people of all ages to make. For 2023, we celebrate National Week of Making from 17-23 of June.
What is Making?
According to National Today, the term ‘making’ refers to the creative aspects of metalworking, woodworking, drawing, and digital fabrication. Making helps to drive STEM innovation by leveraging design and experimental play in processes such as the Engineering Design Process (EDP).
This article from TryEngineering explains making and the maker mindset, pioneered by Dale Dougherty. He strongly believes in the value of making for education. He advocates for project-based learning that can help cultivate young minds that are naturally curious, creative, and experimental. Dougherty believes that by developing a maker mindset, students become self-directed, purpose driven, resourceful, and iterative. You can read more about his beliefs and approach in his paper, “The Maker Mindset.“
How to Celebrate National Week of Making
Celebrating National Week of Making is easy and fun. Check out the following ideas-
- Explore an extension of making called Design Thinking in this TryEngineering article. Both making and design thinking promote leveraging an innate drive from within one’s self and a flexible mindset to problem solving.
- World Maker Faire can be a great way to launch or expand the maker mindset in a student. Maker Faire is where novices and experts of all ages come together to show what they’ve made and share what they’ve learned.
- Advocate for makerspaces in educational settings. This list can help you get started creating your own successful makerspace.
- Provide opportunities for art and creativity with STEM learning. 3D Printing by Hand and Light Up Sculpture are lesson plans from TryEngineering that combine a design element with the engineering design process.