Making in the classroom

The project ‘Making in the classroom’ (explore-making.ch) was a two-year development and investigation of various making training courses and project weeks in school grades 5-9. This project involved various people from research, further education and training from the Zurich University of Teacher Education, the Zurich-Basel Plant Science Centre (PSC), represented in the project by the Institute of Plant and Microbiology at the University of Zurich, and the practice partners CreativeLab Zurich and the Zurich City School Board. The innovative aspect of this project was the interdisciplinary approach to designing making activities by incorporating science, robotics, art and design. To this end, various making courses were trialled and evaluated in cooperation with 25 teachers from ten different schools. In addition, the project was supported by an international advisory board of making experts, which was consulted on a regular basis. The PSC developed a series of ‘Bio-Tinkering’ courses as part of the project. At the PHZH, the further training courses developed include a basic making course and in-depth courses on the topics of digital patterns, laser cutters, 3D printers and physical computing. These making courses have already been incorporated into the PHZH’s continuing education portfolio and are proving very popular. Teachers were also supported in the classroom with a focus on lesson transfer. At the same time, various OER (Open Educational Resources) were developed. Several scientific publications were published, an anthology ‘Making&more’ was published and two conferences were organised. A physical makerspace was planned and opened on the PHZH campus.