How Maker Mindsets Can Be An Easy Fit For Rural Schools #MakerEducation
Nice piece from MindShift | KQED News about how rural school environments are uniquely equipped to adopt the maker mentality.
Take for instance the work being done by Brock Hamill at Corvallis High School in Montana. The students in his science class construct air sensors and analyze data in a way that helps address a problem unique to their community. Air pollution poses a problem for that region of Montana because of nearby forest fires and, in the winter, use of wood-burning stoves.
“We can just get days and days and days of smoke,” said Hammill, and it can get to the point where sports practice and games must be canceled.
Working with a teacher training program at the University of Montana, Hammill borrowed expensive air sensors for his students to use for a couple of days each semester. But he wanted his students to have more access to sensors, so he set about making his own. His first task was to see if he could even make a sensor from scratch and then test its accuracy so that his students could do the same.
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