Turning the top layer a few clicks, twisting the side a couple times and layer by layer, step by step, the puzzle of the Rubik’s Cube is unlocked in less than one minute by Hillcrest Junior High seventh-grader Immanuel Cowdell.

Immanuel can solve not only a Rubik’s Cube, but about any logic puzzle or speed cube put in front of him. He shows his makerspace adviser and teacher Beth McKinney, who is amazed by his technique as she was folding origami paper.

“I like coming to makerspace and just chilling here while I do these,” Immanuel said. “I want to go into tech and build my own PC.”

At another table, eighth-grader Kenzi Mead is making friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss and filling in bright designs on coloring sheets. 

“There’s a lot of stuff you could do,” she said, adding that she wants to build with LEGOs next. “I don’t have LEGOs at home.”

Already creating with the bricks are ninth-graders Raegan Staggs and Allie Lobach and others.

Raegan appreciates having fun and making friends with common interests. Allie feels comfortable in the space.

“I’m free to make my own choices, but there’s help if I need it,” she said.

Makerspaces, in the simplest of terms, are places where people, or “makers,” create, or “make,” projects using a variety of hands-on and digital tools. 

The junior high’s makerspace offers art supplies, robotics, a LEGO wall, 3D printing, K’NEX, speed and logic puzzles and more. Students opt to come to the space during an enrichment class period once per week as well as during the after-school program. 

“Makerspaces need to be available and accessible,” McKinney said. “It’s important for kids to have a place where they can explore their own interests, talents, curiosities and have that experience on their own with the freedom to do it in a safe, controlled setting. Many students might not have the tools, the confidence or the opportunity to do so, so it’s important we have a safe space where any student can create and many learn best by doing, with their own hands.”

Hillcrest converted an existing classroom into the makerspace this past fall. This particular day, they were finishing placing the word, “makerspace,” on the wall.

“The name ‘makerspace’ you can do a lot of deconstruction and reconstruction. For example, we’re using different materials for our sign. We broke apart CDs and part of a VCR tape and then we used some crafting supplies for the letters so it just shows that we can make something out of anything,” she said.

The funding for the makerspace comes from the STEM Action Center as part of the Computing Partnership Grant to Advance Computer Science in K-12 schools, said Murray School District’s Elementary Director of Teaching and Learning Missy Hamilton.

“Our CTE (career and technical education) program hosts computer science classes as part of their curriculum so we are using the Computing Partnership Grant to begin teaching coding in K-six (grades) and to supplement computer science via makerspaces in six-12 (grades),” she said. “Murray High has a fully functional and quite robust makerspace that is open in the mornings that hosts 3D printers, robots, simulation stations for four- and six-cylinder engines for the auto shops (and) teachers use it as a lab space for say ceramics or to create Roman aqueducts before teaching their social studies units.”

Grant Elementary has built a model elementary makerspace “to see if we can viably create an elementary makerspace and what projects we can reasonably expand to in an elementary setting,” Hamilton said. 

Hillcrest’s as well as Riverview Junior High’s makerspaces are designed to host projects from robotics and circuitry to 3D modeling and engraving, she said.

McKinney already can dream of adding more supplies, such as iPads, a circuit machine and a sewing machine to the makerspace to give students a chance to discover, engage and learn.  

Critical thinking, problem-solving and persistence are amongst the skills students can acquire through hands-on activities in the makerspace, she said.

“Makerspaces gets us out of the monotonous pattern of reading, writing, math and all things school. We get up and move,” McKinney said. “It gives us a balance in our lives, a chance to be creative while we learn. We can get back to what humans are in the finest form of learning, by doing and learning from that experience.” λ