Bridging Books and STEM with Design Challenges

by Jennifer Tazerouti, May 2019

It used to be that articles and presentations on makerspaces and the maker movement had to have a short introduction to define each of the terms, introducing the reader to what a makerspace and making is all about. Now, makerspaces are often incorporated into the design of new school buildings, and making activities are quickly becoming a staple in school libraries, stretching the boundaries of the type of experiences librarians offer to their students.

Maker activities and design challenges help bridge books to science, technology, and math standards, as well as the collaborative future ready skills that our students will need for the jobs we do not even know exist yet. Infusing maker activities into books, offering design challenges, and collaborating with teachers to integrate making into research assignments are a few ways librarians can tap into the maker movement and provide new options for student inquiry.

Start with Books

Combining books and making is easy. Take a book, ask questions, find a problem, and explore solutions with design challenges. Whether it is a problem a character faces in the plot or a learning objective such as understanding character and setting, almost all problems lend themselves to making.

Just as the teacher's explanation, enthusiasm, and presentation of the task is essential to the success of the activity, so is allowing the students ample opportunity to explain their creations. This is where the seed of "you need to tell me why you did this" is planted. It is a golden moment in which students get to expound upon how their ideas manifested into a creation. This explanation allows students opportunities to practice conveying complex ideas to others. Maker activities or design challenges offer opportunities for expression of how a student connects with texts, ideas, and concepts. They also offer opportunities for writing and speaking as students explain their creations to the teacher, class, and especially, their community. In this age of YouTube celebrities, many students enjoy having their explanations video recorded and are eager to watch themselves and reflect on the recording. However, writing or journaling about what they made is certainly an option.

Click to Enlarge +Bridging Books and STEM with Design Challenges

At Foxbank Elementary in Berkeley County, South Carolina, the librarian uses Triangle by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen to engage first graders in learning character and setting. Students are challenged to create the characters Triangle or Square in a setting outside of the book. Students created their scenes using Playdo, markers and paper, and Legos. Check out Foxbank Elementary School Library's Twitter feed at Foxbank Elementary School LC for videos of the students explaining their creations (https://twitter.com/FoxbankL/status/1042181743187566592)

After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat also lends itself to making. Students can engage in simple activities such as building a scene from the book or get more complicated by designing a safe way for Humpty to get down from the wall without a crack. These activities may lead to actual egg drop challenges.

Similarly, The Three Little Pigs invites design challenges to build wolf proof houses or wolf traps.

Students can design characters in new settings or create traps for villains for just about any book.

Here are some more books that lend themselves to making:

• Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams, illus. by Catherine Stock
• Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beaty, illus. by David Roberts
• Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty, illus. by David Roberts
• Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers, illus. by Shawn Harris
• 21 Elephants and Still Standing by April Jones Prince
• Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman, illus. by Dan Yaccarino
• Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds, illus. by Peter Brown
• Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming, illus. by G. Brian Kara
• One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia by Miranda Paul, illus. by Elizabeth Zunon
• If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen

Engagement and Choice

Click to Enlarge +Bridging Books and STEM with Design Challenges

If anything justifies a makerspace in the school library, it is the level of engagement and the creation of new knowledge that maker activities always bring. Making can have huge benefits for student engagement. Students become excited and rise to the challenge of designing something and solving a problem. Often, students are simply thrilled to have a non-traditional activity at hand that feels more like playing than school work. The excitement is evident in the students' voices when they explain their creation to others. Students who are normally reluctant, tune in and become involved in the activity. Some students become so engaged in the activity that they take their creations home and work on them, or they come back to the library to continue working. Many times, students show pride in their work and want their picture taken with their creation.

Consider offering a design challenge as a choice for students after book checkout or story time. You could read a book and discuss it one week and offer a related design challenge the next. This may also help with the time constraints of school libraries on fixed schedules. Offering our students a choice in how they use their library time is helpful to make consumable materials last longer and fosters student agency. For example, students may choose from silent reading, a design challenge, or another activity.

Another option is to hold monthly maker activities or design challenges, such as making LED flashlights or creating a catapult, that could be completed during the library's free use time, such as lunch periods, study periods, and before and after school.

Collaborating with Teachers

Providing making options for research projects is game changing in that they offer a tactile and often low-tech option for students to express their learning. Knowing that the library supports these options with time, space, and resources might be the determining factor that inspires a classroom teacher to collaborate with the librarian to offer students the option of demonstrating their learning through a creation.

Long gone are the days of the "sit and get." These are the days of standing up and creating, and school librarians are leading the way. Let makerspace and maker activities shine in your school library and the impact will ripple through your community of learners.

Resources

How do you get started? Consider exploring some of these resources.

Websites

• Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit by IDEO: https://designthinkingforeducators.com/toolkit/
• Design Thinking in Schools: https://www.designthinkinginschools.com/
• Novel Engineering, Tufts University: http://www.novelengineering.org/

Twitter

• Foxbank Elementary School LC @FoxbankL
• Todd Burleson @todd_burleson
• Rosie Herold @MsRosieLMC
• Frances W. Parker Library @fwplibrary
• The Yarn SLJ podcast @theyarnpodcast
• Nikki Robertson @NikkiDRobertson
• Diana Rendina @DianaLRendina

Print

• The Elementary School Library Makerspace: A Start-Up Guide by Marge Cox (Libraries Unlimited 2017).
• Makers with a Cause: Creative Service Projects for Library Youth by Gina Seymour (Libraries Unlimited 2018).
• School Library Makerspaces in Action edited by Heather Moorefield-Lang (Libraries Unlimited 2018).
• Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun by Elizabeth Foy Larsen and Joshua Glenn (Bloomsbury 2012).