- On this edition of iQ: smartparent, your child's classroom may be getting a makeover thanks to the rise of the Maker Movement.

See how 21st century students are using high-tech tools, do-it-yourself ingenuity, and good old fashioned hands-on problem solving to take learning to a whole new level.

We are all about the Maker Movement and how it is revolutionizing education.

So stay with us because iQ: smartparent starts right now.

(gentle music) Welcome to iQ: smartparent, I'm your host Darieth Chisolm.

We are becoming a nation of makers, people who imagine a product and then build it rather than buy it.

That maker mentality is moving into our classrooms as kids build skills they need to succeed in the 21st century job market.

Our first guest can tell us all about inspiring students through making.

She is Lisa Regalla, Deputy Director for the Maker Education Initiative.

Lisa, thanks so much for being on the show.

- [Lisa] Thank you for having me.

- So let's talk a little bit about the definition of making.

- That is a loaded question.

(both laughing) A lot of people define making in various different ways.

But really, at its core, it's just creative building.

And the beauty of making is that it involves a large variety of skills.

That can be anything from sewing, to gardening, to woodworking, to building complex electronics and 3D printing.

It's really that all of us are makers.

It's this innate ability that we have to create.

- And we've been creating certainly through generations, but now the focus in the classroom is really on helping children understand just how important that is.

And when we're talking about facilitating meaningful education, how is it that making is incorporated into the classroom as it relates to meaningful learning?

- Well, really, making is this return to the hand.

It's a really do-it-yourself movement.

And in education, it puts the driving force with the students, that they're really driving and controlling their own learning.

That it's a self-directed process.

And so they want to learn, they want to come to school because what they're learning is important to them at that moment in time.

- When we look at particular curriculum and certainly the variety of curriculum in a classroom, are certain making projects more incorporated in certain curriculum, or is it just across the board?

- There's definitely a focus on STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math when it comes to making, but we see that a lot of schools are really using making in a very interdisciplinary setting.

And so making is a nice way to help kind of break down those silos that we see in traditional schools and help blend arts with science and different types of learning.

I even spoke to a teacher recently who said that her German classroom is the maker space in their school and that she uses that hands-on approach to actually teach foreign languages.

- Foreign languages, that's interesting 'cause that's a bit of a step away from STEM.

(Darieth laughing) - Mm-hmm, definitely.

- But to think about using it in a foreign language class, I mean, can you describe what that would look like for students in their curriculum?

- So for instance, in that classroom they labeled all the parts of their classroom in German.

They were doing a project with them where they were building pieces in their classroom and they would have to go up and ask for different parts and materials in German.

So they'd have to say, "I need three straws to do this."

And so it was a really practical use of language.

And then that really stuck with the students.

- We know this obviously benefits students, but when we look at teachers and their ability to really transform their classrooms into maker classrooms, do you find that some of them are challenged to do it, to think of ways to incorporate making in their curriculum, or does it evolve quite naturally?

- Yeah, I mean, we're all born makers.

So a lot of it is just kind of returning to that playful, creative side that we had as a child and remembering that we all have that drive to create and make.

And we might not think of it in our day-to-day lives, but maybe it's a hobby; maybe we like to sew or we like to build things in our spare time or even scrapbook for instance, right?

And so, really, it's in thinking about how we shift the classroom so that it's not that the teacher knows everything, but that it's really putting the onus on the students that the students are driving the learning.

And that's really the shift, helping a teacher and an adult, even a parent, to step back and let a child struggle, let them work through the problems on their own and be there as a coach and a facilitator to really help guide them along their process.

- How can teachers, though, find innovative ways to include making projects in their classrooms, particularly for those that are outside of the traditional STEM arena?

- Reaching out into the community is a great way to do that.

A lot of schools bring artists and residents or makers and residents into their programs.

There's a lot of great parents or other community members that have skills that they can bring in.

So if the teacher is not comfortable right away, they can do that.

But honestly, it's just diving in and getting started.

A lot of spaces really just start from a champion in that school that has a vision.

And then once others see how engaged the students are in learning in those spaces, then others kind of grab on and build the confidence as they go.

- Recently, President Obama linked the maker education to building up our country's manufacturing industry.

It's a very interesting link, but inform us a little bit about what you think as it relates to that link.

- I think it's a really strong and natural link, actually.

We think about our manufacturing processes today, and they're very different from what they were a long time ago, and they really are involving these STEM skills, and we need a new workforce and we need to increase America's manufacturing plants.

And we think about, in schools, that kind of traditional shop class, for instance, and how that might've been training manufacturers.

Well, our maker spaces are now kind of that new evolution in training our future manufacturers, and bringing those STEM skills, bringing the problem-solving skills, the collaboration skills that we need to this 21st century manufacturing workforce.

- Lisa, thank you so much for joining us for this edition of iQ: smartparent.

We've got so much more we want to talk about.

And we are looking forward to showing you an absolutely incredible project made by high school students.

You don't want to miss this.

I promise, you're going to be amazed by what these kids created.

But up first, it's easy to see how making builds science, technology, engineering, and math skills.

But take a look at how this innovative educator uses hands-on projects to build a better understanding of poetry.

- Who would go parading in London, and masquerading- - In this room, you see some of our seventh graders, they are making a robot theater where poetry comes to life.

They get a poem and they must make a roboticized diorama to bring the poem to life.

- [Student] You're probably gonna have daddy standing somewhere around here and we'll have a motor with a Popsicle stick or something to knock him over so he falls into the pond.

- And we're gonna try to make it spin, right?

(students chattering) - Poetry can be challenging for a lot of kids, they don't like it, they don't understand it, and so I thought this might be a way to make it more fun.

How do you understand a poem?

It's the repetition of the reading of the poem that helps you understand it.

So when you build something and you have to really think about it, they may glean some more meaning from it.

- On the last of October when dusk is fallen- - [Sue] And this is a way to be creative with technology.

(gentle music) - I'm joined by Graig Marx of Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a strong model of what's possible when we commit to making in the classroom.

Graig, you are the K-12 Science Department Chair at your school, and you've got some pretty incredible prototypes of artificial limbs that were designed by your students.

So as we get started, and we look at this, let's talk about this program and what it's designed to teach kids.

- Thank you for having me.

The program is designed to give kids an authentic engineering and design experience.

A lot of our students who want to be engineers and they're sitting in a traditional classroom studying, taking tests, we want to give them a chance to design, to produce something, to show us not only what they know, but what they can do.

- How old were these children who created these and in what classes and subjects?

- So for the prototypes you see here, her name is Emma Lee, she's a senior.

And the class that she was in last year that I teach again this year is called Research Science, it's a engineering and design course.

We try to get as many students to take the classes as possible, so it's open to sophomores through seniors.

- Take me through this so that we're clear as to what's on the table and the process by which it involved.

- Okay, so we have an artificial limb, and this was actually the artificial limb that was donated by an individual, he served as a participant in the project, and we needed somebody to participate so we could eventually try the leg out.

We needed dimensions to go off of height, weight.

And what we have here is the finished product of the prototype.

It has a flexible foot that mimics the movement of the feet.

It has a leg that is designed to mimic the bones in your lower leg.

And then it has a socket.

And all of these were 3D printed, different plastics, different colors show different parts.

What we're able to do is, with the... With the 3D printer, excuse me, is a lot of trial and error learning.

And that's what making is all about.

This part of the leg ended up being too thin.

And we tested it and it broke and we saw that it could break there, so the final design actually had a thicker segment there that added to the structural integrity of the leg.

In a similar fashion, the goal was to design a foot that mimicked a real prosthetic foot.

This is called a SACH foot.

It has wood on the inside hat's hard for support and it has foam on the outside for flexibility.

And the first foot we actually used is made of a flexible plastic that was too flexible.

So again, we didn't realize that was a mistake until we did it.

So...

I'm sorry.

- We're talking about creating each of these elements using a 3D printer.

That's amazing in and of itself.

(laughs) Is this expensive to do as a project?

- It's not, and that was one of the goals of this project.

A regular leg like this, depending on your insurance and where you get it from, thousands of dollars, around $5,000, we were able to print that leg for under $25 in material.

- Wow!

- A leg like this takes about a month to make from start to finish.

And total hours of printing was about 50.

So it's a much quicker process, a much cheaper process.

The printer itself, it depends on the model.

There are some expensive models, three, $4,000, but you don't need those in terms of what you might wanna do in your classroom.

You can get away with printers that are four or five, $600.

- Does this ultimately, or could it ultimately involve in lesser costs for the patients when it's all said and done?

I mean, are we essentially finding a cost saving measure overall that may impact the medical field entirely?

- Yes, definitely.

The idea of rapid prototyping gets a part out faster in the back and you're not paying for all of that time in terms of creating that product.

So for rapid prototyping, for manufacturing, it should limit the costs of... Oh excuse me, lower the costs of a lot of products when 3D printing is applied to the earlier devices.

Emma was thinking to herself, "How do I use 3D printing, use making, to help others?"

And that's a really big part of our school.

Our credo is think also of the comforts and rights of others.

So we don't wanna just make toys or make products that are fun, we wanna make things that are gonna help people.

So now they run for the opportunity.

We've been doing this for a couple of years now.

So a lot of the students who were younger saw some of the other projects that have occurred throughout the years.

And a lot of them are eager.

They'll come up to me and say, "I can't wait to take Research Science next year."

Because, not necessarily me, I like to think sometimes it is, but it's not, it's because of all of the work that the students do.

The students can create some incredible things.

And they see their peers doing it and they want to be able to do that as well.

- That would be great, because the younger they're involved, the more time they have to learn this.

- Yes.

- Now, you did bring, again, as you showed us earlier, kind of the evolution of this, but you have to tell me what that is at the end of the table.

- A lot of people see 3D printing and they think it is easy to do.

And it's not to scare anyone, but it is to show the reality.

I mentioned 50 hours.

A lot of people think this stuff happens very quickly.

But that 50 hours, it was only after many failed prints.

And this is an example of a failed print.

As the printer is moving back and forth, we'll see how it functions shortly, the part fell off at hour 13, and then it continued to print on nothing for two straight hours.

So that is as much plastic as the printer was extruding in two hours.

- But the lesson learned here for kids, particularly those that are working on this, is that you continue to do it in spite of the failure so you can get to the successful outcome.

- That's the thing about the Maker Movement that I love the most; failures are not looked at as negative things.

When you get a question wrong on a test, that's a negative thing.

In this case, every failure led to new information that made that product that much better.

So we fail up to make those products as good as they can be.

- That's fantastic.

Well, Graig, you've certainly brought along the testament to the type of work that's happening over there at Winchester, so we're so glad to see that.

Stay with us, we have so much more that we want to talk with you about.

And we'll hear more about turning students into makers in a moment, but up first, discover how one public school decided to dream big by building a Dream Factory for its students.

(gentle music) - [Dr. Bart] This is our Dream Factory Kickoff Day at Elizabeth Forward Middle School.

- You can make a kinds of things, robots to cups.

- Once you add it to AnimationXpress, it fast-forwards it.

- If you could redesign... Every child in our school will come through the Dream Factory.

In our art area, children are able to create products and ideas using art and 3D printing and computer technology.

In the Industrial Technology Classroom, they're incorporating traditional, but also incorporating that with plastics and glass and laser cutting.

In our computer class, it's creating programming to manufacture products that can move.

- I use the Makey Makey to make it more interactive.

- Why did you make- - [Dr. Bart] We have a charge to provide opportunities for children in our world to learn these technologies.

- This is an idea that I came up with.

It's an iPad holder.

It's gonna be able to stick to a wheelchair.

- [Dr. Bart] It's changed the culture of our school.

(gentle music) - Graig Marx is back and we're joined by two of his colleagues at Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Welcome Adam Nye and David Nassar.

Thanks so much for being here on iQ: smartparent.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you.

- You all are doing fabulous things over at Winchester.

And clearly, it's a school that's primarily a college prep.

But in this case, you're incorporating this maker opportunity on a variety of different levels.

Why is it so important for the kids and the curriculum there?

- I think it's really transformed our school because you have certain set of skills that you learn in high school, but when you start to apply those skills to real-world situations, that's when the real learning takes place.

And so we're not just teaching our students skills at Winchester Thurston that they can later apply once they leave our school, but they're actually able to apply them right there in the school.

I had a student last year who, while driving on the roads, realized that there was a pothole problem in Pittsburgh and he wanted to try to fix it.

So he 3D-printed something that could fit underneath a car and could sense the road and then send data back to a human who could do something about it.

So that's real learning.

You have a student who's going out there and seeing a problem and trying to fix it.

- How is this is working to transform the teachers though?

The Maker Movement obviously is all about the kids really integrating and using their hands and their imagination.

But for teachers, this has to be pretty profound.

- Go ahead, Graig.

- It is.

It's transformed the way I approach a class, because so much about how I used to teach was, here's the exact material you needed to know because at the end of the year here comes this test that you have to take.

When we have situations like this that you see in front of us, there really is no right answer.

There's just better versions of it.

So not knowing what the answer should be, kind of takes down some of the walls in the classroom of the this is how I know I've learned something and they're able to explore different scenarios, they're able to show their ability to be successful in different ways.

So I have to approach the class completely different because then there's no set way to do it.

- Right, I would say, as teachers, it really makes us have to elevate our game because we have to be ready for a student coming at us with their own problems that we hadn't thought about previously.

You can't go into the script that you're gonna read, you have to come in each day and face the challenges with the students.

- You've brought some more examples of what can be created through 3D printing and of course, this Maker Movement.

So explain what we have on the table.

- These are all 3D printed models of people's heads.

This is my profile.

This is the Head of School at Winchester Thurston, Gary Niels.

And this over here is you, Darieth.

(Darieth laughing) And so what we've done here is shown three different setups with an Arduino Popular Microcontroller and the Maker Movement, and maybe some things you could do with these 3D printed models.

- Okay, so now we have to talk about how you did this.

- [David] Sure.

- Because I know what I went through, which was really simple, but to see this sitting on the table now, an hour later, is pretty fascinating.

- Absolutely, I'll let Graig explain.

- The 3D scanner is very important.

The leg that you saw earlier in the show, we needed to know the exact shape of the residual limb of the individual, the exact shape of the foot.

And that's hard to model on a computer using shapes like circles, squares, rectangles.

So the scanner allows us to get data of the actual object.

So the scanner that I had was taking images of your head as I walked around you.

And it was the exact scale, it was the exact shape, the exact size of the different features, whether it was your hair or your ears or your nose.

And we're able to get that information and then in the computer somehow mess with it.

We can 3D print you, we can give you a different body, we can add things to you, we can turn you into an animation, we can incorporate you into a prosthetic leg, if that was the case.

So it's a really cool tool to be able to use to add to the printing, to the prototyping.

(gentle music) - And here we've made some nightlights.

So I can show you a little bit how this works.

- Yeah, lets see how they work, yes.

- Yeah, so this first one, we'll just show you how, if you turn this on, this will go through a series of colors, showing students how, as you mix different colors of light, you can get different colors of light.

And just within my profile will show those different colors of light there.

And that's exciting, but we can make it more exciting, I always tell my students.

So what's the next level up from this?

The next level up would be this one I have next to me, which is the Head of School, Gary Niels, at Winchester Thurston.

You put this inside.

This is a true nightlight.

Now we have sensors integrated.

And if I turn this one on, a nightlight only should turn on when it's nighttime, so I'm gonna simulate nightfall by putting my hand over the sensor, and that's gonna block out the studio lights.

And when I do that, the light turns on.

When I bring it back and it's daytime, light turns off.

What you can see is I bring my hand over that sensor and the light turns on only when the sensor is being blocked.

Then the last one, it's certainly not least, it would be your model there.

And here, if anyone's lifted the clapper commercials from before, we can see that I've made a simple clapper for you.

So if you put this inside here, and Graig, if you would do me the honors.

- [Graig] I'd love to.

(Graig clapping) - [David] When we clap, the light turns on.

(Graig clapping) Clap, the light turns off.

(Darieth laughing) (Graig clapping) - Thanks, Graig.

- I love it.

(Darieth laughing) - So this is all fun, but what the students do is take these skills and then apply them to real situations.

I had some students who did a simulation of some traffic flow.

And so they were able to, using a 3D printed model of traffic lights, get these traffic lights to light up at the appropriate times when maybe a car would pull up to an intersection.

I had some other students last year who took the sound sensor that I used for the clapper and decided that they wanted to use it to monitor the sound in the library and let students know when it was getting too loud.

- Are they ever intimidated by the complexity of this?

I'm looking at this and thinking to myself, geez, what it would take to do it, but are the kids intimidated by it?

Or I would assume that some of them would be fascinated and eager to learn how to do it.

- Yeah, I would say excited is more rather than intimidated, at least with our students.

What would you say Graig?

- Especially the way we try to introduce it to them.

So it's not, "Okay, everybody has to learn how to use this sensor this way."

It's, "Come up with a way to use a photo resistor to turn something off or on."

And then they can be creative with how they go about doing it.

So in this case, it could be a cool nightlight for the younger brother or sister.

It could be to incorporate it into the idea of the traffic signal, maybe when the car drives over the sensor it gets dark, so the lights go on.

So we really try to just give them the tools and the skills.

And then in the spirit of the Maker Movement, how can they use those skills to do something, solve a problem that they came up with, right?

So we really want it to be student-centered and that helps engage the students.

- The value of what kids are learning as part of the Maker Movement in the classroom is just priceless, because not only is it really taking and being ingenious in coming up with different ideas and watching it come to life through the 3D printer and all of the other technology, but it's also, as we talked about earlier, just teaching them about this process of failing until you get it, but also the collaboration of working together in teams.

And so how important is that in terms of the value that this brings in the classroom?

- I think it's incredibly valuable.

I mean, through this process of making, the students have to work together in a lot of different cases.

I think also, they're often working with different experts in the community, they're having to work with their teachers, this is sometimes unknown territory for all of us.

And I think the other big piece with collaboration is they're having to think about their community, how do they collaborate with different people in their community to have a positive impact on them.

- It's certainly applicable.

They're not just working projects and putting them on a shelf, they are literally creating things that people are using and need to use.

- Precisely.

- Yeah, certainly.

Adam, before you moved to your current position, you worked in various museums, and so, how are you taking the work that you did at museums and now integrating that into the classroom?

- Yeah, so I had the pleasure of being a part of the start of the maker space at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh as well as the Children's Museum in Texas.

And through that experience, we learned a lot about providing learning opportunities for students to make things.

As educators, we learned about how to be flexible and open-minded so that students who are pursuing these making activities have the opportunity to do so as they choose.

And I think we apply that a lot in the teaching at WT, where we as teachers are trying to be more flexible and open-minded and allow the students to take direction.

We also learned at the museum that in order for children to be successful in making opportunities, it's really important that they have the essential skills.

So you have to start at the very beginning with some of this work.

And we're doing that at WT through a partnership with the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and our kindergarten classes, where the museum helps us to introduce making with our students at the kindergarten level, giving them the opportunity to make things and build on some skills like collaboration, how to communicate your idea and actually see it through.

And children in kindergarten are learning those skills and building on that through their schooling at WT so that when they get to classes like Graig and Dave's, they're able to actually really make some phenomenal things.

- Great, great.

Well, guys, unfortunately we've run out of time, but this has been fascinating and we appreciate it.

And thank you so much for being here, a part of the show.

Creativity, confidence, and imagination.

That's the wishlist we all want for our children.

Talk to your kids and their teachers about the value of Making in the classroom.

It's one more way we can deliver the inspiring education our kids deserve.

Thanks for being here, and we'll see you again next time on iQ: smartparent.

- [Narrator] Want to learn more about iQ: smartparent, visit us online at iqsmartparent.org for more episodes and additional tools and resources.

Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to share your thoughts on being a 21st century parent.

(gentle music) iQ: smartparent is made possible in part by The McCune Foundation and The Grable Foundation.