FALLS CITY – The Falls City Middle School is hosting a maker space for classrooms and math teacher Jamie Milam says it’s inspiring after-school creativity.

 Milam: “It opens up their creativity and allows them to think in a STEM-related mindset.”

Milam: “This is just a way for them to be creative and not have certain parameters around their creativity because so often in school there is. They can just come here and be free and make and just tinker.”

Sixth grader Addison Daniels is making a tower, Royce Capek is reusing a drink bottle for a robot and Corbyn Kuker is making a replica of a WWII transport ship.

 

Falls City economic developer Lucas Froeschl said the city’s EDGE organization provided funding for the maker space to try and instill hands-on skill sets for some of the trades needed in the area.

He said 21st Century skills mean interfacing with technology.

Froeschl: “At this age it’s kind of a game and then, when they get older into the real manufacturing world  - trades world, some of those skills that they learned as a younger kid they can apply as an adult.”

University of Nebraska-Lincoln cooperates with the public schools with Extension Educator Kaytlynn Kennedy and assistant Jami Ankrom providing exploration to 4-H and agricultural tech classes. One class made T-shirts using the cricut machine, a barrier-breaking printer that cuts intricate designs.

Ankrom: “Each student was able to design their own, so we had anywhere from sea turtles to deer to football numbers, just a wide variety for each student.”

Daniels: “I’ve been taking straws and I’ve been cutting the straws up and I’m going to make like this. I’m going to decorate the straws and color the straws and I’m going to have it just like a big, old, colorful tower.”

Kuker: “Today I’m down here in makers space making a D-Day boat that they stormed Omaha Beach … My great grandpa -- he’s still alive to this day -- he served in World War II and Vietnam."

 

Industrial Tech teacher Don Coolidge said while there is instruction and testing to ensure safe use of machines the day-to-day work is student led.

Coolidge: “They jump right in. They’re not scared to use it. I mean, like adults would say I’m not sure about that, I don’t want to push this button, they’ll say, ‘hey, what’s this button do? And they’ll go ahead and do that.  That’s part of kids and their creativity and allowing them to do that. As long as it’s done safely.”

Milam said makers space is a trend that is gaining momentum in schools, but it all depends on funding.

Milam: “You can have a makers space as small as having donated items of families cleaning out their closets as opposed to what we’ve got here with two 3-D printers, a Dremel, we have table saws, we have band saws and we have circuits, robots, I mean you … the sky is the limit and there’s no real right way to have a makers space. It’s just a place for kids to tinker.”