Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

All-Girls High School Expands Makerspace to More Than Four Times Original Size

  • By Yvonne Marquez
  • 12/14/20

Saint Joseph Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school in Cleveland, expanded its Makerspace innovation lab to 4,800 square feet, more than four times the size of the former makerspace. The expanded space creates a larger hands-on area for students to explore and create using a variety of STEAM-related tools.

“At Saint Joseph Academy, our young women have not only any opportunity, they have every opportunity,” President Kathryn Purcell said in a press release. “The key to making the Makerspace innovation lab a place that students think about using in their design process is to provide our young women with structured opportunities in the Makerspace innovation lab so they are comfortable with the equipment and develop the ‘what if’ mentality. The Class of 2020 graduates were three times more likely than the national average of females choosing engineering as a major.”

The most popular tools in the makerspace include 3D printers, laser engravers, vinyl cutters, the green screen and digital cameras. The makerspace also offers

Some examples of student projects created in the makerspace include:

  • Graphic Design II students used the laser cutter and Adobe graphic software to create their own clocks.
  • Honors Geometry students designed city street maps using the CorelDraw program, then engraved their maps on wood, and later added 3D buildings to the maps.
  • Art 1 students used the makerspace to translate their learning of tessellations within their color theory unit. Students used software to digitally draw an outline of their motif and then used the laser engraver to print a tile of their design.

About the Author

Yvonne Marquez is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Texas A&M Opens First Building at Fort Worth Campus, Breaks Ground on Research Facility

    The Texas A&M University System marked a major milestone in the development of its Fort Worth campus by opening its first completed academic building and breaking ground on a second facility designed to expand research and industry collaboration.

  • Photo courtesy of Kraus-Anderson

    Concordia College Completes Memorial Auditorium Renovations

    Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., recently completed a $2.5-million renovation project to Memorial Auditorium, a news release reports. The college partnered with Kraus-Anderson for the project’s construction and ICON Architectural Group for its design.

  • New Jersey Day School Opens New Science & Entrepreneurship Building

    Saddle River Day School (SRDS) in Saddle River, N.J., recently celebrated the grand opening of the new Dr. Kristen Walsh Hall of Science & Entrepreneurship, according to a news release. The school partnered with DIG Architecture on the 32,000 square foot facility, completed on a 17-month construction timeline in time for the beginning of the new school year.