---
title: "Maker education"
chunk: 2/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_education"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:20:18.018902+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Development and expansion ==
Since 2005, maker education has gained momentum in schools across the United States and around the world. Proponents of the maker movement cite the potential for making to bring more women to STEM fields and close the gender gap. Other potential benefits and goals for making include creating greater educational equity among students in public schools, and the possibility for making to be a driver in educational and societal change. Other educators and innovators have developed offshoot curriculum and technologies related to the intersection of critical thinking and making, called critical making.
In school models, such as the Lighthouse Community Charter, a charter school in Oakland, California, Aaron Van der Woorf, the robotics teacher leads the students in Maker Ed. At the Park School, in collaboration with Harvard's Project Zero, students hold a mini maker faire in school that also acts as a fundraiser for the school. Some districts have also adopted maker education district-wide, such as the district of Elizabeth Forward, just south of Pittsburgh, which partnered with Carnegie Mellon to provide professional development for teachers through working with students on Maker Ed. Principals in Albemarle County schools cite Superintendent Pam Moran as instrumental in bringing maker education to their school district.
School Maker Faires feature a display of maker education themed projects, and number over 100 per year. The U.S. contains the majority of the annual School Maker Faires, but they also occur across all continents, although they are often organized by U.S. organizations such as the Nanshan School Maker Faire in China  organized by SteamHead. School events are sometimes not open to public admission, but the official Maker Faire website lists all past and upcoming shows and oftentimes schools encourage the general public to spectate and interact with student exhibitions.
In addition to bringing maker education to schools, scholars like Paulo Blikstein of Stanford University and Dennis Krannich of the University Bremen, in Germany, state that, "Digital fabrication and 'making,' and the positive social movement around them, could be an unprecedented opportunity for educators to advance a progressive educational agenda in which project-based, interest-driven, student-centered learning are at the center stage of students' educational experiences.". Penketh High School in Warrington became the first state school in the United Kingdom to establish a dedicated makerspace embedded into the curriculum in 2017, led by physics teacher Caroline Keep. Keep's earlier work with Mark Feltham at Liverpool John Moores University from 2013–14, developing one of the first makerspaces in UK higher education through the HEdWorks Project, had laid the groundwork for this approach. Keep and Feltham also co-founded Liverpool MakeFest in 2015 alongside Denise Jones of Liverpool Libraries, which grew into a major national maker education event designed to widen the access for educators to makers. It celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2025."

The Obama administration has also strongly supported the growing maker movement as an integral part of STEM education, which it hopes will increase American students ability to compete globally in the areas of science, engineering, and math. At the White House, President Obama hosted the first ever White House Maker Faire in June, 2014, adopting the idea that Americans are a "Nation of Makers". On the Nation of Makers webpage, Americans are encouraged to join the movement, asserting that "empowering students and adults to create, innovate, tinker, and make their ideas and solutions into reality is at the heart of the Maker Movement". Since the first-ever White House Maker Faire, the Obama administration has "continued to support opportunities for students to learn about STEM through making, expand the resources available for maker entrepreneurs, and foster the development of advanced manufacturing in the U.S." In summer 2015, the President announced the National Week of Making, June 17–23, to support the Nation of Makers. In 2016, President Obama renewed his commitment to maker education by continuing the National Week of Making. The National Maker Faire will include participation from the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Navy (Navy), the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). At the time of this announcement, the President also detailed the progress that had been made on the Nation of Makers. He announced, 

Eight Federal agencies are announcing new grants, education initiatives, training, knowledge networks, and other supports to help create more makers and assist more entrepreneurs to take prototypes to scale with new ventures.
More than 1,400 K–12 schools, representing almost 1 million students from all 50 states, are committing to dedicating a space for making, designating a champion for making, and having a public showcase of student projects.
More than 100 additional commitments including the distribution of 1 million foldable microscopes to children around the world by Foldscope Instruments; the investment in 100 new makerspaces by Google as part of the Making Spaces program; and new steps to support making at 77 universities and colleges through Make Schools Alliance.
In addition to these developments, on June 17, 2016, the White House issued a press release, detailing the next steps the United States government will take to support the development and expansion of maker education.
In 2015 the China Premier, Li Keqiang, decreed that makerspaces would be a part of China's economic development plan. This was followed by the government funding of hundreds of makerspaces across China. In the years that followed, many public and private schools opened school makerspaces where students could build and innovate, propelled by government sponsored makerspaces and international school makerspaces such as the Shenzhen American International School makerspace, makerSAIS, opened by SteamHead in 2014.

== Critique ==