From creativity and expression to job training and entrepreneurship, maker learning is what you make of it.

Many formal learning institutions are eager to integrate making into their curriculum, but lack the necessary funding, space, or professional development. The Kickstarting Making in Schools project aims to remedy this by helping schools develop, implement, and fundraise for maker projects.

In October 2011 the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh opened MAKESHOP — an exhibit space where kids and adults can tinker with tools, physical materials, and the latest in digital media. As one of the country’s first museum-based makerspaces, MAKESHOP has become a national model for museums around the country. Rebecca Grabman has been at MAKESHOP since the beginning, rising in the ranks from summer intern to manager. Grabman grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and has a master’s degree in entertainment technology from Carnegie Mellon.

On any typical day in the MAKESHOP at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, kids and families are woodworking, tinkering with circuits, and crafting cardboard swords and shields. But nestled in the corner of the bustling workshop is the trusty stalwart of the space: the four-harness floor loom. Rebecca Grabman, MAKESHOP manager, said the loom is […]

The holidays are an especially inspiring time for sparking the desire to make. From gifts to cookies to decorations, it’s the season that naturally lends itself to busting out the craft bin, getting hands dirty, and letting imaginations run wild. This season, why not give the gift of more hands-on making experiences and upgrade the holiday season into an all-out maker extravaganza?

How do we teach our kids to persevere in the face of failure?

This holiday season, spark a lifelong love of STEM learning with gifts that give the kids in your lives a chance to tinker: a visit to the MAKESHOP, a roll of duct tape, a mini circuitry kit, and much more.

With guidance from Fred Rogers, early childhood educators in Pittsburgh are putting today’s technologies into classrooms in ways that make sense for young learners.

As kids head back school this fall, educators and researchers are teaming up to figure out what kids learn from tinkering, and how it may help prepare them for the future.

Museum professionals from around the country gather in Pittsburgh this week to explore the future of children’s museums in the 21st century. The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh's MAKESHOP, where kids and adults can experiment with the latest physical and digital tools, is one exciting model. Lisa Brahms, the museum’s director of learning and research, explains.

“You can’t flunk at a museum,” says Jane Werner. The executive director of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh sees museums as labs that can inspire the next generation of artists, scientists, engineers and their teachers.

Playtesting seeks to analyze the balance of play- in terms of boundaries or rules, loopholes, understanding, and pure enjoyment and entertainment.