The Dawson School Makerspace in action
Jeff Ellenbogen shows us the Dawson School makerspace in Lafayette, CO
I’ve gotten a nice response from those of you who offered to “show me” your makerspace. I’ll share other makerspaces in future posts. If you’d like to “show me”, send me some photos of the makerspace and tell me about how students use the space. Write me at: dale@make.co). I will show more makerspaces next week.
Jeff Ellenbogen provided the most detail about their school’s makerspace along with the most photos so he gets to go first.
Dawson Innovation Center Makerspace in Lafayette, CO
Jeff Ellenbogen is Director of Innovation and Technology and Chris Supiro is the Makerspace Director
How often and for how long do students have access to the makerspace?
Students in our middle and upper school classes meet 2-3 times a week for 80 minute blocks. This works out to 3-4 hours per week. Classes offered include - Maker Workshop which is a middle school elective for 7th and 8th grade students. In our upper school, students can choose from - Wearables, Digital Fabrication, Idea Incubator (Entrepreneurship), Inventing with Technology (Prototyping with digital tools including 3D modeling and printing and micro-controllers), and an Innovation and Technology Capstone where students can work on their own student-driven projects. We also have taught week-long workshops where students create electric guitars and this year we will be running a skateboard design and fabrication workshop.
What kind of staffing, if any, do you have for the makerspace?
We have a full-time Makerspace Director who runs the space and teaches 1 or 2 classes per semester in addition to keeping the space safe, clean, maintaining all of the equipment, ordering materials, training students and faculty, and supporting faculty with new ideas where they can use the Makerspace with their students across all subjects and grades throughout the school.
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve seen a student do in your makerspace?
So many amazing things happen in the makerspace. One of the cooler things that comes to mind is when two senior girls decided they wanted to run a workshop for middle school students to learn to make epoxy art. These seniors had created Mother’s Day gifts for their moms the previous May and decided it was so much fun that they want to run an after school workshop. They designed the plan for a two-week workshop and taught the participants to first create custom silicone molds and then, in the following weeks, students pour epoxy into their molds to create holiday ornaments. Building a culture of exploration and collaboration organically led to this workshop coming to life and really speaks to the kinds of programming and community a Makerspace can foster.
Here are a few photos of our space in action and additional info about the space.
Geometry students working on a dog house design and fabrication project. Three dog houses were built and donated to pet owners in the area.
CNC Guitar Making professional development workshop offered for educators from around Colorado in the summer.
Lower school students are learning about how the heat press is used to adhere their designs to t-shirts.
Last summer, we hosted 16 maker educators from around the country in the Dawson Innovation Center Makerspace. Educators from K-12, college, and folks with connections to Makerspaces gathered for a week of collaboration and co-creation. It was amazing experience which we are excited to build off again next summer... Here are some highlights from the inaugural Dawson MakerEd Jam in Summer 2025
Dawson MakerEd Jam will take place on July 6-10, 2026. Click here for more information.