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National Making Week Underway, White House Releases Fact Sheet on “Nation of Makers” Initiative

National Making Week Underway, White House Releases Fact Sheet on “Nation of Makers” Initiative

“From The White House:

The President is proclaiming a National Week of Making and the Administration is announcing important progress on the Nation of Makers initiative:

More than 150 K-12 and higher education leaders, representing more than 4 million students, are committing to an all-hands-on-deck effort to broaden participation in making, tinkering, and invention, with expanded access to the tools, design courses, mentors, and spaces that are essential;

Federal agencies, companies, non-profits, cities, and schools are collectively making commitments to create over 1,000 maker-oriented spaces in the United States, which will expand access to tools and technologies for both students and entrepreneurs; and

Federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), are launching challenges and competitions that leverage the diverse talents for creativity, problem-solving, and innovation in the growing Maker community.

The complete fact sheet runs 5500 words.

From the Fact Sheet:

Institute of Museum and Library Services will work with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and other partners to create a framework for effective spaces for making and learning in museums and libraries. An e-publication highlighting the framework along with an online toolkit will be released by November 2015.

Here’s a section of the fact sheet that focuses on projects from libraries and museums.

Museums, libraries, non-profits, and companies will give more students and visitors the ability to access maker-oriented spaces, start projects, show their work, and meet Makers in their communities. For example:

Changing Expectations, which will collaborate with Code.org to create a maker-oriented space fortraditionally underserved students at an inner city library in the Austin, Texas area.

Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, with educational support from Kickstarter, will launch a campaign to support makerspaces in schools, starting with 10 schools in the Pittsburgh region.

Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago will expand its after-school Innovation Clubs program at its Wanger Family Fab Lab, create an equipment loan program to enable schools to try out DIY technologies before they buy their own; and will double the number of 3D printing workshops it offers each year, helping the lab reach 12,000 individuals.

The New York Hall of Science is partnering with six museums and science centers to create a site, learnXdesign, dedicated to creating STEM-focused

Making projects for educators around the country. The institutions collaborating on the site include the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio; Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, Minn.; Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts, ¡Explora! in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Telus Spark in Calgary, Canada.

The North Carolina State University Libraries’ D.H. Hill Library, which serves more than 1.4 million users annually, will add a Makerspace to its facility this summer with tools such as 3D printers and scanners, sewing machines, and electronics equipment, along with a teaching and demonstration space.

The Science Museum of Minnesota is launching “Making Connections Saturdays,” a monthly celebration of hands-on activities with local artists, crafters, fixers, and tinkerers from around the Twin Cities who are typically underrepresented in the maker movement.

The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, will open a first-of-its-kind, interactive exhibit merging the worlds of making and biology.”

Read the Complete Fact Sheet

Stephen

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Posted on: June 15, 2015, 10:22 am Category: Uncategorized

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