Mobile MAKESHOP

Program Overview:
MAKESHOP at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s Center for Creativity, the Allegheny County Library Association, and West Liberty University, are developing a mobile version of the MAKESHOP exhibit. This project is generously funded by The Benedum Foundation.

Major Goals of Mobile MAKESHOP:

• Enable communities across the region to experience MAKESHOP in ways authentic to diverse learning contexts. Once developed, Mobile MAKESHOP will visit schools and community-based sites, serving children and families throughout the 10-county region surrounding Pittsburgh and into West Virginia, to provide hands-on maker activities.
• Enable teachers and informal educators to recognize, value, and support making as a practice of learning within their classrooms and communities. The Mobile MAKESHOP program will provide professional development for educators of participating schools and community institutions, as well as pre-service teachers, as an integral aspect of the Mobile MAKESHOP experience.
• To understand, model, and replicate these efforts sustainably through evaluation and research that identifies and translates the affordances of making for diverse learning contexts such as schools, libraries, community-centers.

Advisory Committee:
Through a competitive application process, the partners will select an advisory committee of teachers, librarians, community educators, and administrators to collaborate in the development of Mobile MAKESHOP and its related programming. This advisory committee will be responsible for the following:

• Advise on the development of authentic and applicable teacher/educator professional development as well as student/community learning formats and experiences
• Prototype child-focused and professional development aspects of Mobile MAKESHOP in their contexts of practice
• Document and reflect on these prototyped experiences
• Attend four advisory committee meetings  at the Children’s Museum
• Be an ambassador of maker learning for their school and/or learning communities

Contact Information:
Adam Nye, MAKESHOP Manager
412-322-5058 ext. 219 / anye@pittsburghkids.org