So far, we’ve spread the news about four educators who received special Holiday EdTech gifts from us. These educators all applied for our technology grant throughout 2018, but, unfortunately, due to the large number of applications we received and the fact that we only award $500 worth of EdTech per month, there were a lot of excellent applications we were not able to select. For this last educator, however, we sent a little something before the start of the new year. Leigh Kuhn is a school librarian at Bondurant Middle School in Frankfort, Ky. and she caught our eye with her ‘STEM to STREAM’ initiative, so we made sure to get her something she can use in the new year! 

Leigh is on a mission to provide her students with innovative maker experiences despite large-scale budget cuts in her home state. Working closely with her school’s Technology Coordinator, Stella Pollard, Leigh has begun plans to get her students the maker materials they need to unlock creative learning. In a school in which advanced academic clubs and interscholastic athletics are the primary focus, Leigh wants to ensure that all students have the opportunity to make, innovate, and create something that will help them grow intellectually and personally.

This year, her school added a coding club to its programming with a key parameter being that they would reach out to students who weren’t involved in any other school activities. With Stella, Leigh is determined to build the self-esteem of these students by providing them with knowledge and skills so they can become makerspace ambassadors throughout the school and among their fellow students. When all is said and done, Leigh wants the term ‘makerspace’ to be the most recognized and talked-about word in the school—a goal we can certainly get behind!

The look of their library at the moment and the lack of inviting qualities it possesses are also serving as a source of motivation and inspiration for Leigh and her students. They are hoping to get their maker activities really going by creating some decorations for the library and then progressing from there. As she said in her original grant application back in November, Leigh knows that, with the right combination of technology, reusable supplies, and student ingenuity, they will be able to transform their old library into a makerspace hub fit for continuous creativity and investigation. That’s exactly what she has in mind for some of her first big projects, too!

Leigh eventually wants her students to design and build an interactive book wall and a robot greeter for their makerspace. In creating the book wall, Leigh is planning on enlisting help from the school’s art club and using Bare Paint to turn old, recycled vinyl signs into pictures. She then wants to have the coding students program recordings of book trailers using Scratch and connect the paintings to a Makey Makey or a Raspberry Pi. As she said, students who walk by the library would be drawn in with the chance to touch these interactive symbols and hear trailers for the books on the shelves!

For Leigh, this project incorporates a number of important STEM concepts, but, more importantly, stretches STEM into STREAM by including so many relevant aspects of learning. She believes this is what a true makerspace should be like—a perfect combination of collaboration, creative imagination, ingenuity, hands-on investigation, and fun! Based on what she’s planning on doing, we think Leigh will be able to reach her goal of making makerspace activities as common as anything else in the school!

Leigh also wants to help her students build self-confidence and believes that the freedom to create within their makerspace is the ticket to doing so. As they complete their decorative projects, which will serve as permanent components of the final makerspace, be sure to keep up to date with all of the progress Leigh and her students make. You can follow her on Twitter and check our Twitter or Instagram feeds for any updates! This concludes the brief blog series of educators receiving Holiday gifts from us. Remember—our grant program runs monthly and the application for January’s award is open until Jan. 17! To learn more about the program and to apply, visit our grant page.