New to Mon Valley: Media Center & Makerspace

For the past several years, Mon Valley School has been introducing STEM and STEAM concepts and curricula to the students at Mon Valley School. Five years ago, we started with some staff members who were interested in how to better deliver technology and technical skills to special education students. Since 2017, we have started a computer vocational class, introduced a technology class for all students at Mon Valley School, and started numerous STEAM clubs, including story time STEM, typing club and Lego club. Our Material Handling vocational class collaborates with the IU to package and deliver the Storytime STEM-packs to schools all over the country. We have hosted multiple STEM days and battle bot competitions. This year we have started to transform our media center into a makerspace.

The media center will continue to be a place to promote literacy, to provide a wide variety of reading materials for all uses, and to provide materials for reference and research. Within the physical framework of the media center we envision keeping all of this but merging a makerspace environment into space. This low-tech environment will provide our students with the opportunity to innovate, to create real-world applications for classroom concepts, to make failure a learning experience not a frustrating endeavor, to expose students to new opportunities, to build critical thinking and problem-solving skills and to develop a wide range of 21st century skills. While still early in the process, we have successfully built a makerspace cart, added flexible seating and have held numerous experiments and arts activities!

Flexible seating allows for comfortable, prolonged learning sessions.

Students designed and built a makerspace cart that can also travel to classrooms!