In 2016, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Houston TX, committed to creating a STEM community—the da Vinci Lab for Creative Arts & Sciences. The makerspace is shared with local schools, in addition to St. Stephen’s own students. This year with a grant from a local law firm, the da Vinci lab was able to expand its robotics program into every classroom. Originally, the da Vinci Lab mainly hosted classes within the makerspace, but quickly became a push-in program so Kindergarten teachers could collaborate with lab instructors to deliver developmentally appropriate hands-on STEM activities.
Charlie Larrabee, da Vinci Lab instructor, and Matt Beard, robotics instructor, were kind enough to make time in their busy day to share their successes and challenges so Montessori schools can get a glimpse into designing and running a makerspace of their own.
V. Kulikow: How do students—youngest to oldest—interact with the makerspace?
Charlie Larrabee:
My youngest group is Kindergarten and we run da Vinci lab projects in their homeroom, because it’s a familiar setting. Starting in first grade we meet in the lab. That’s where the kids work on touch-typing, programming, 3D design, and electronics. Typically, I will have meetings with the homeroom teachers and discuss what type of things they are working on in their curriculum. Right now, we are doing bridge design, so I also want to talk to the kids about triangles, because they need to be thinking about triangles as they’re designing their tresses. The hope is to have some tie-in and if it doesn’t happen at the same time, then at least I make sure I’m using the same words that they use in their homeroom.
Matt Beard:
I’m the middle years humanities teacher as well, and a lot of times in robotics the sort of grander task that we’re working towards in our bigger projects are inspired by real-world events. For instance, we have a mat that features a number of elements like PVC couplings, different colored checkers, and that sort of thing. One of the tasks was inspired by the Fukushima nuclear reactor cleanup. Different colored elements represent radioactive elements vs. inert elements. Different zones on the map mirror the real-life cleanup that was done by having to move elements to where they’d be safe and where they’d be handled properly. We always have an eye on current events and real-world applications.
V. Kulikow: What are the greatest challenges in running the Lab?
Matt:
The opinions expressed in Montessori Life are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of AMS.