Through a partnership with Beyond School Bells, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Grand Island Public Schools is able to have its very own mobile makerspace lab as well as a permanent makerspace in every elementary and middle school. The actual title of this lab is the TMC (Think, Make, Create) lab. The purpose of this lab is to provide children in the community with opportunities in STEAM related tasks. This lab is able to be used in a variety of settings. A majority of the time the lab will spend its time at elementary campuses for approximately two to three weeks at a time for the main use as an afterschool experience for students at those buildings as determined by that building's makerspace leader. The lab can also be made available for special events so please ask to see if your event can host the TMC lab or certain materials as needed for your event. The calendar of events for the TMC lab can be seen below. To familiarize yourself with the main goal of a makerspace, you can also watch the videos below to see the life changing effects of a "maker" mindset.
Hands-on
Fun
Based on student interests
Hard
Filled with experimentation and possible failure
A change in the way we think and teach
Where people can experiment, investigate, problem
solve, and design new inventions both collaboratively and independently
Also known as STEM lab, hackerspaces, and fab labs
Happens anywhere
Play time
Easy
Too Structured
Limiting
About the "cool stuff"
About cookie cutter projects
Inventory
The materials that each makerspace in the district has are listed in the document below (left). At the bottom of the this sheet click on the school you wish to look up materials for. The materials listed in this sheet are for permanent items. The school shown may have more consumable items that are not listed as those amounts are always changing. The iPads that each building has are also listed below in the spreadsheet on the right.