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Published On: 11/27/14

Worcester Prep Holds First-Ever Maker Day Event

By: DispatchAdmin via Maryland Coast Dispatch

BERLIN – Students at Worcester Preparatory School had the chance to get their hands dirty with a variety of practical projects for the school’s first-ever Maker Day this week.

Maker Day, a celebration of problem-solving skills and do-it-yourself projects, took place at the Berlin private school Tuesday.

“The Maker movement is big right now,” said science teacher Colleen McGuire. “It’s not just a shop skill anymore.”

Lower school students at Worcester Prep are pictured creating a marble maze as part of the school’s Maker Day on Tuesday.

Lower school students at Worcester Prep are pictured creating a marble maze as part of the school’s Maker Day on Tuesday.

McGuire came up with the idea to host Maker Day at Worcester Prep after seeing similar events prove successful throughout the country — at everywhere from elementary schools to the White House.

“A lot of schools are starting to create Maker spaces for students to use more hands-on skills,” McGuire said.

At Worcester Prep, McGuire and her fellow teachers designed 25 projects for upper school students and 15 projects for lower school students. The children were divided into age-appropriate groups and handed their supplies. With just a bit of teacher guidance, they went to work.

Projects for the school’s older students included making wooden furniture, building teepees out of bamboo and fabric, and putting together compost bins.

Headmaster Barry Tull helped students put together a greenhouse behind the school. Worcester Prep parent George Tunis helped others build chairs — complete with the school’s logo etched by a computer-operated milling machine — out of wood and cable ties.

“We wanted to be creative but also to make things we could use,” McGuire said. “A lot of the things they’re making are also

Puja Jani uses plastic caps to depict van Gogh’s Starry Night painting.

Puja Jani uses plastic caps to depict van Gogh’s Starry Night painting.

functional.”

Worcester Prep’s younger students made musical instruments out of recycled materials, molded clay jewelry, practiced weaving and created cardboard mazes to send marbles through. For them, the day culminated with an impromptu musical performance that enabled them to show off their cardboard instruments, ranging from guitar-like diddlybows to trumpets.

“We’ve been working all day to make something out of what a lot of people thought was nothing,” music teacher Christopher Buzby said.

While adjusting his cardboard drum — and drumsticks made from drinking straws — fifth-grader Graham McCabe said he’d liked all of the projects he had worked on for Maker Day. He described making boats out of kitchen materials, using bottle caps to portray Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night and building mazes out of old cardboard.

Worcester Prep upper school students are pictured in the early stages of Tuesday of a greenhouse construction project. Photos by Charlene Sharpe

Worcester Prep upper school students are pictured in the early stages of Tuesday of a greenhouse construction project. Photos by Charlene Sharpe

“I really enjoyed it,” he said. “A lot of the activities are really fun.”

High school student Hayley Larsen, working on building a wooden shelf, said she appreciated the chance to make something.

“I don’t get to use power tools a lot,” she said.

McGuire said that in addition to providing students with the chance to use tools they might be unfamiliar with to actually build things, Maker Day was designed to enhance students’ problem solving skills and to teach them thue of teamwork.

“They’re learning a little more about themselves and each other,” she said.

 

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