When Peggy Koenig learned that a nearby Baltimore County school no longer had room for its MakerLab, she knew she had to take advantage.
Koenig, a fifth-grade teacher, approached the school's incoming principal, Doug Elmendorf, last summer to see if he was interested in giving the idea a try.
Now, what was once a computer lab at Hillcrest Elementary School is now a hub for imagination — without screens. An analog space in a digital time.
"We're always told we're behind the other countries in STEM education, and we're always told we need to get our kids thinking more critically and creating and collaborating," he said. "This does all of that in such an engaging way."
The lab is simple in design. Rows of tables are placed in the middle of the room. Students stand at the tables to make their creations — there are no chairs.
Projects are made of upcycled materials. About 90 percent of the goods used have been donated by school parents, Elmendorf said.
"We put out a call on Facebook for materials — cardboard, bubble wrap, aluminum foil," Koenig said. "Within a day or two we were flooded with materials. It's super."
Along the perimeter of the classroom are shelves with completed projects, including one from a fifth-grade class that made scale versions of famous landmarks. The computers remain below the shelves, for now.
But it was in the middle of the room where the action was happening. Students use upcycled materials to create projects that demonstrate their comprehension of what's going on in the classroom.
For a recent English/language arts lesson, Koenig recently told her students about a 14-year-old who created a vending machine with first aid materials in it. That led her to ask her students what the main character in the books they were reading could use in a pinch, if they had access to a vending machine. They went to the MakerLab to design their answers.
Fifth-graders Khiya Murray, Dino Casciani and Roman Dongarra teamed up to create a horse and carriage and a compass for Ellen, the protagonist in the book they're reading, "Toliver's Secret" by Esther Wood Brady.
"It just feels like I can make anything," Dino said about being in the MakerLab.
And for them, it beats the alternative.
"It's more fun to create things with your mind than just sit down at a table and write an essay," Roman said.
When the lab opened, the first thing Elmendorf saw was a second-grade class using it to make versions of themselves for classroom introductions.
"All the creations were so much different from one another," he said. "You immediately saw that creativity."
Said second-grade teacher Kate Jaudon: "I think with all the push for kids to be testing and using technology in every aspect of their day, to actually get their hands on things is still really important and that's what it allows them — to be creative and to take all those things they're learning with the technology and put their physical touch on it."
For a lesson on structure construction based on a wall collapse in Baltimore City in 2014, students went to the lab to build their own sturdy structures. After reading "Stuart Little," Jaudon had her students create something for the mouse protagonist Stuart to use.
As the school year comes to a close, Hillcrest will celebrate the innovation that has taken place in the lab's first year with a Maker Faire in the school's gym and garden courtyard. It's open to the public, and Elmendorf said several schools will be visiting it over the course of the two-day event. Second-graders will be based in the garden. Projects they created included a bird feeder that squirrels cannot access, decorations to cover a fence and 3-D maps.
After a successful year with the lab, Koenig believes Hillcrest is at the forefront of a MakerLab movement, with more Baltimore County schools integrating implementing them into curricula.
"It's never boring in here," she said. "Never ever, for teachers or for kids."
If you go
Hillcrest Elementary School Maker Faire
When: 9 a.m.-3:15 p.m. Wednesday, June 1 and Thursday, June 2
Where: Hillcrest Elementary School gym and garden courtyard, 1500 Frederick Road, Catonsville
Call: 410-887-0820