Curriculum-Based Maker Projects 

MIT Edgerton Center- Maker Idea Gallery
https://k12maker.mit.edu/ideagallery.html

Idea Gallery

• Adaptable, inspirational Maker project ideas that have been shared by K-12 Teachers and Maker-Educators

• These adaptable project ideas are tagged by Object OR Tool, NOT by core subject area or grade level.

•  Objects are the kinds of things that students will create while Tools are the specialized Maker tools and materials that students will use.  

• Check out our collection of Maker starter projects to get your education community Making. No curriculum tie-in required.

Lesley College STEAM Lab- Making with Teachers
https://steam.lesley.edu/category/making-with-teachers/

What Do Maker Projects Look Like in Each Subject?

https://spencerauthor.com/maker-projects-look-like-subject-area/ (john Spencer)

I think the main point is that maker projects should not been done in isolation, but as part of project-based learning.

So, let’s dig a little deeper. Let’s take a look at how people might use a makerspace in each subject area:

Language Arts: For specific projects, you can do video documentaries (with the green screen area) (you could do inquiry-based Curiositycasts or thematic podcasts), blogging, immersive world building (such as Minecraft in storytelling).

But you can also align the Common Core ELA standards to design thinking projects. Every time they are doing research, going through ideation, and launching to the world, they are hitting specific standards.

You can also integrate informational reading within maker projects by using multimedia informational text to learn how to do a beginner’s level challenge employing media/design software such as WeVideo.

Social Studies: Documentaries, whiteboard videos (similar to RSA Animate or Common Craft), thematic blogs, thematic podcasts, Google Sites-based research, history-themed theater production (using the makerspace to do everything from set design to costume creation to multimedia elements).

In economics, you can use the makerspace to do Shark Tank style projects, going through the LAUNCH Cycle to design a full project. Create a budget in Google Sheets.

Math: Create a board game or arcade game (probability standards),

the Tiny House project (proportional reasoning, volume, surface area),

creating a Scratch game (reinforcing x-y access, learning logic)

Science: There are tons of STEM-related ideas, like solar energy designs, engineering projects, building lunar colonies, etc.

PE: Design a sport, invent a way to get people to naturally want to exercise (there’s a whole field of design-based methods for inspiring movement) — in other words, develop a partnership between P.E. classes and the design-based activity in a makerspace.

Art: There’s such a natural connection between what students do in art class and what they do in makerspaces that I can’t even begin to add the ideas. One maker-related thing that our former art teacher did was a steam-punk sculpture project. That could easily have an engineering and robotics element integrated into it.

Create a poster or graphic design using Canva or Google Drawings.

Create technical sketches of engineering designs.

Music: Music video projects, multimedia projects, designing an ideal studio, music composition with Garage Band or Chrome Music Lab.

Foreign Language: Design-oriented tutorial partnerships (where students work with refugees to create video tutorials for aspects of American life and then learn and practice the language as a result).

Translate projects using Scratch or AI-Cognitive Services.

FACS (Family and Consumer Sciences): I’d argue that FACS classes have been makerspaces before we developed makerspaces. The goal here, though, is to allow students to have more creative control in what they are making. See Science of Cooking.

Computers: Scratch project (designing a video game), multimedia composition projects, Microbit circuitry projects, robotics