The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and U.S. Department of Education (ED) launched an interagency collaboration with the New York Hall of Science to develop and implement STEM-rich making activities for 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) in eight states. This effort was Phase 3 of a project piloted in 2015, to provide afterschool educators with a six-week making curriculum that focused on exploring circuitry concepts through a series of maker based activities.

Making is a broad grassroots movement that inspires young people to be creative, imaginative and inventive and offers new and powerful approaches to STEM learning. At the heart of making is creating hands-on experiences that are student driven, invite creative exploration of materials and harnesses children’s inherent love of play as a developmental resource to blend STEM learning. It also allows for a variety of entry points and pathways for learning empowering young people to advance their understanding and skills as they develop and build out their ideas or inventions. The activity guides included here are written with upper elementary school-middle school age children in mind, but the activities can be adapted for all ages.