White Light, a Spark funded project, will be part of a very exciting workshop event on August 18th and 19th. Hosted by The Carnegie Mellon University Children’s School and  Dr. Sharon M. Carver, the event will provide educators and administrators with original ideas for improving early childhood education. Read on to learn more about the […]

Usually a classroom full of students tapping away on phones is a clear sign that the teacher has lost control. Not so in Enrique Legaspi’s high-tech history class where children are encouraged to use their phones, ipads, and laptops–as long as they’re using them to access Twitter. Legaspi began integrating Twitter into his teaching earlier […]

We’ve just received some great news from our friends at Ready Freddy. The interactive book “Ready Freddy Goes to School” will be available online later this month! Currently, the folks at Ready Freddy are tweaking the final project and addressing feedback they recently received from preschoolers at Miller Elementary School. They will also be previewing the […]

What’s STEM, you ask? STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math–all fields in which women are traditionally underrepresented. The Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania are dedicated to changing this, both through their Spark-funded Robot Algebra Project and through a variety of camps, workshops, and events throughout the region. The Girl Scouts now have open registration for […]

The parents we talk to are excited by the doors technology can open for their children. Wether their kids are navigating the depths of the PPG Aquarium’s Big Ocean Tank with Reefbot or exploring their own back yards with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Digital Discovery Room one thing is clear–a dose of the […]

At Spark, we believe that one of the keys to a successful educational career lies in getting a good start. This is one of the reasons we’ve funded projects like Ready Freddy and Baby Promise. (Read more about these projects on our Funded Projects page.) So you can imagine our excitement when U.S. Secretary of […]

Kidsburgh, “an all-out effort by a large and collaborative group in Pittsburgh to make Pittsburgh the best place for kids on the planet,” has published its first newsletter. Filled with photos, videos, stories, and interviews, Kidsburgh is a destination for all the new and exciting work that’s changing the way our kids live, learn, and […]

Let out your inner child and celebrate your favorite Saturday morning childhood memories!  Meet Caroll Spinney (Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird). Experience auction items including a trip to San Francisco/Santa Rosa to visit the Charles M. Shultz Museum, the Cartoon Art Museum and the Disney Museum.  Learn to draw, juggle and more. Enjoy Saturday morning […]

Micro Spark project RePlayMyPlay will host an energy and electricity workshop for children at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts on three Sundays in October: the 10th, 17th, and 24th. Project manager Deren Guler leads a fun and exciting hands-on program to introduce kids to key concepts in science in technology. There’s even an energy […]

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiles recent Micro Spark project Character Therapy from Interbots, LLC. They’re uisng Popchilla, an interactive therapeutic robot, to engage children at the Autism Center of Pittsburgh. Photo Credit: Matt Freed/Post-Gazette photo Ms. Patel said her group didn’t set out initially to build a robot for use by children with autism. “It was […]

Micro Spark Project Manager Deren Guler passes along the following invitation to join Kid Power Week, a summer camp of RePlayMyPlay, the Micro Spark supported project to design and construct energy harvesting playground equipment. See the flyer below for more details or contact Deren by email.

Micro Spark project RePlayMyPlay, an energy harvesting playground, is in the spotlight on Carnegie Mellon University’s homepage. RePlayMyPlay project manager Deren Guler, a recent graduate of CMU’s Physics department, shares some of her thinking behind the creation and ongoing development of RePlayMyPlay and the gratification that comes from introducing children to new concepts: “The best […]

Three recently supported Micro Spark projects will be featured on The Saturday Light Brigade this Saturday, June 12 at 9am. SLB host and previously funded Micro Spark project manager Larry Berger will get the background story on new Micro Spark projects in interviews with these project managers : Dave Edwards from Art Energy Design whose […]

RePlayMyPlay, a Micro Spark project led by Deren Guler, has been named a finalist in the KaBOOM! Promote Your Project Design Contest. Deren’s design is in competition with playgrounds from around the country for equipment grants worth up to $5,000. Congratulations Deren on making it this far! Awards are made by public ballot and the […]

Sprout will host an information session for all interested Spark applicants on Saturday, May 22, 2010 from 9:00-11:00AM at the Waffle Shop in East Liberty. Join us, over yummy waffles, to learn more about Spark and begin working on an application in time for the June 4, 2010 submission deadline. This is a chance to […]

On Saturday, March 20th, Sprout’s Funding Programs Manager Mac Howison joined host Larry Berger on the Saturday Light Brigade to discuss Spark grant opportunities and recently funded projects. Joining Mac on the show were Micro Spark award winners Joe Wos of the Toonseum, and Deren Guler from RePlayMyPlay. Joe and Deren, as well as Larry […]

Come see the Fred Forward Innovation Showcase featuring 4 Spark-funded projects this weekend at The Children’s Museum! Join Sprout from 12 noon—4 pm on Saturday March 20 and Sunday March 21  for this special one-time-only Innovation Showcase demonstrating some of our region’s most unique and creative applications of technology to learning. Sponsored by The Fred […]

The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is looking for young photographers to represent the Pittsburgh region and the United States for the International Heritage Photographic Experience, (IHPE), an enormous project involving 200,000 in 66 countries spanning across 4 continents. Interpreting the theme of heritage in the broadest possible sense, young photographers have captured nearly 1.3 million […]

Starting this Saturday, January 30, 2010,  the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh opens a new exhibit celebrating all things Pittsburgh with hands-on activities that let kids repair one of the city’s renowned bridges, design their own fireworks display, create new Pittsburghese phrases, invent a wacky sandwich … and much more! The weekend-long activities include featured programming […]

Pittsburgh start-up Electric Owl Studios are the subject of a profile in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review covering the development and deployment of the Kid’s Interactive Creation Kiosk, or KICK, game system used in hospital waiting rooms across the country. Today, there are 55 kiosks in 35 different hospital waiting rooms in 23 states across the country. […]

Making Sparks brings together members of Pittsburgh’s education, early childhood, technology, and media communities.

I read two great articles in the New York Times this week about innovation in elementary education and early childhood. One article highlights a school in New Haven that is utilizing art installations as teaching tools for math and science. The school, which was constructed last year, has integrated all kinds of high-quality art works […]

Making Sparks is Spark’s unique forum exploring how technology and innovation can transform the lives of young children in our region. It will also kick off the 2009 Super Spark funding round, Spark’s annual funding program awarding grants of up to $50,000 to collaborative projects impacting young children through technology and media – focusing this […]