About Tynkertopia, Inc.
Tynkertopia, Inc. is a non-profit community center in Flagstaff, AZ.
We focus on creativity, inquiry, and STEM/STEAM knowledge and skills.
Flagstaff is America's First STEM Community, and Tynkertopia, Inc. is Flagstaff's new STEM/STEAM Community Center.
Tynkertopia is less of a classroom and more of an environment for experimentation, discovery, learning, and fun.
Tynkertopia is a place filled with opportunities to play, invent and launch imaginations into overdrive! Designed for kids, parents, teachers, and community members, Tynkertopia builds STEM/STEAM skills and encourages independent thinking, questioning, inquiring, designing, building, exploring and tinkering!
No digital-age learning space/place survives and thrives without technology; BUT, no amount of bright, shiny new technology can take the place of inspiration and dedication. So, Tynkertopia does not focus exclusively on the newest emerging technologies and tools; we focus on an atmosphere of inquiry and excitement in learning.
Founded by veteran educator, Dr. Alice Christie, Tynkertopia invites students, teachers, and parents, and community members to come and play, learn, experiment, and grow as a tynkerer!
At Tynkertopia, you will find a myriad of recycled and new materials with which to work, a dedicated workspace, workshops and classes, facilitators to guide your progress, and encouragement to follow your creative dreams.
The Environment
For inquiry-based learning to occur, students must be attracted to the space and be inspired to use it. Tynkertopia is designed to:
- invite curiosity
- inspire wonder
- encourage playfulness, and
- celebrate unique solutions
The Guiding Principles
- It’s OK to fail. In fact, Tynkertopia encourage failure, because it is simply the first or second or third step toward success.
- Breaking things is also OK. Tynkertopia is likely to have a wide array of broken things for learners to build with.
- Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate! The best companies, engineers, and researchers in the world know the power of teams—today’s science is not a solo sport.
The Facilitators
Tynkertopia's facilitators are resourceful, failure-tolerant, collaborative, and always learning themselves. In short, we need to be able to model the principles and ethics of Tynkertopia in front of the students, teachers, parents, and community members we serve.