At MOC-Floyd Valley, the Markerspace program provides students with dedicated time to focus on creativity and critical thinking. Often called hackerspaces, hackspaces or fablabs, Markerspaces are creative, do-it-yourself spaces where students create, invent and learn with a variety of materials and activities.
MOC-Floyd Valley middle school students work on snap circuits.
Students at Orange City Elementary enjoy Botley programming through the Markerspace program.
Sandy Groom-Meeks, the MOC-Floyd Valley Technology Instructional Coach, leads the Markerspace program, and says that spaces are hubs for “creative tinkering”.
A Hospers Elementary student sculpts using tin foil.
At Hospers Elementary, a student works on making a lego marble run.
The program started with borrowed materials and was supplemented with low cost and no cost items. Over the years, STEM grants, the school district and parents have provided more materials to enhance the markerspace. Markerspace activities take place monthly in the middle school and two elementary school libraries, and administrative and staff support allow for a variety of activities and opportunities to students to explore, collaborate and learn.
A MOC-Floyd Valley Middle School student creates a lego zipline.
