Designing a Makerspace for teaching sustainable development

South Korea's national initiative to establish Infinite Imagination Rooms (무한상상실, Muhan Sangsangsil) highlights the need for giving children space to apply technology to solve real problems.

In South Korea, these spaces support the goals laid out in the provisions of the 2022 Revised National Curriculum General Guidelines (2022 개정 초중등학교 교육과정). What makes this curriculum such a significant initiative in providing children with modern skills is not just its focus on technology, but also the accompanying emphasis on the process over the outcome, and developing creative, communicative and metacognitive skills. Under this new curriculum, pedagogy is placed before technology and children learn to solve problems relating to Ecological Transformation Education (생태전환교육).

As the press release relating to the 2022 Revised National Curriculum General Guidelines states (link),

"The revised curriculum emphasises the initiative of learners as it enables them to recognise problems on their own and seek ways to solve problems on their own terms."

The rest of the world can learn from the practical work that Korean children are doing as they create smart systems to monitor their local environments and solve real environmental problems.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) provide an ideal framework for designing a curriculum that teaches children how they can use technology to solve problems across different areas of society. Technology can be leveraged to track and reduce energy usage (UN SDG 7), improve food production (UN SDG 2), and monitor and protect life on land (UN SDG 15) and underwater (UN SDG 14). Through engaging in projects related to these goals, children develop skills across the curriculum, as well as communicative skills, thinking skills and citizenship.

The UN SDGs are an ideal framework for building a curriculum based on sustainablity.

Having designed Makerspaces in schools and developed a curriculum based on teaching sustainability, here are five practical lessons for building a thinking-centred STEM space, inspired by South Korea's vision.

1. Pedagogy First

The most common mistake that schools make when setting up a Makerspace is purchasing expensive equipment before establishing a clear curriculum framework. This can include tools like laser cutters and 3D printers which can be difficult to scale into whole-school lesson use. Even smaller-scale equipment like robotics and electronics systems can quickly amount to a significant cost for a school.

There is no one, correct system that schools should purchase for a Makerspace. Instead, schools should carefully consider the learning process that they want to guide students through, as well as the intended output. Are all students expected to design and produce a robot, 3D model or electronics project? How long will these projects be kept for and where will they be stored?

A good way for schools to make decisions about what to purchase is for teachers to invest time in going through the learning and building process themselves, on a small scale. This will quickly highlight bottlenecks, in terms of time spent and materials needed. It will also help teachers refine the learning that will take place, compared to the time spent.

Schools will also need to consider the budget they spend on purchasing materials for a Makerspace. A recommended budget allocation is:

• 40% Hardware and microcontrollers: These should be durable and flexible physical computing devices.

• 40% Consumable Materials: This includes sensors, electronic components, wires, batteries, cardboard and craft supplies.

• 20% Professional Development and Maintenance: This includes budget for training educators and servicing equipment.

A Makerspace is a perfect environment to teach thinking skills alongside technical skills. (Image by Stadtbibliothek Neuss CC BY- SA 4.0)

2. Depth over Diversity

With the huge range of technology systems available, schools should aim to develop children's fluency and confidence in using a smaller, versatile and more familiar range of tools. Ideally, these tools can scale in complexity according to the depth of learning required.

This approach has several benefits. These include:

• Lower costs. Schools are able to reuse hardware across different lessons and age groups, saving valuable resources.

• Reduced student cognitive load. Students are immediately familiar with devices themselves and can focus on the creative aspects of projects, or the new technical concepts being introduced.

• Staff confidence. Like students, staff can become experts and fluent in using a particular system. Between lessons, they access learning content about using devices and engage in community discussion. This confidence is reflected in higher quality, more authoritative teaching.

In programming, students progress from simple, to more advanced block-based programming to using text-based languages like Python. Devices like the BBC Micro:bit support this progression, offering students access to very simple block-based projects, gradually moving into controlling sensors and outputs, to eventually using MicroPython to control the Microbits using Python.

Using Makecode, students can control the onboard sensors of a Micro:bit device, as well as external outputs like motors.

3. UN SDGs as a core curriculum framework

The 2022 Revised National Curriculum General Guidelines (2022 개정 초중등학교 교육과정) emphasise the need for children to develop global citizenship and understand sustainability, with the press release stating,

"Subject contents will be reorganised surrounding key ideas at different school levels such as climate change, communicable diseases and career."

The work that takes place within a Makerspace is perfectly placed to shift in focus from abstract coding excersises to solving real-world challenges, with lessons liked to the UN SDGs.

For example:

• SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy): Students program light sensors and servo motors to build light-tracking solar panel prototypes.

• SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities): Students use Micro:bits to build automated noise and air quality monitors for urban school environments.

• SDG 13 (Climate Action): Students design heatwave and early flood detection warning stations using temperature and moisture sensors.

• SDG 15 (Life on Land): Students engineer smart, automated irrigation systems that save water for school gardens.

Devices like Micro:bits offer both simple and in-depth ways for students to link technology to sustainability.

Students in Korea are actively engaged in projects like these, showing how citizenship and environmental stewardship can be developed alongside thinking skills, technical and digital literacy.

4. Zoned workspaces that match the creative cycle

South Korea's Infinite Imagination Rooms are designed to reflect and support the thought process of transforming an idea into physical reality.

The room design of a Makerspace should recognise and provide for the stages of this process and be flexible to accommodate limited space availability.

One way to develop students' awareness of this process is through the setup of 'zones', which are clearly designated, but flexible and allowing for the limited space in a classroom. These zones can include:

1. Teaching zone: An area for whole class instruction and demonstration, recognising the key role of the teacher as an expert in modelling use of technology and the thinking/design process.

2. Brainstorming zones: Areas for students to map out their ideas on whiteboards or paper. This could include discussion booths, sofas, stand-up whiteboards or whiteboard tables.

3. Building zones: Students easily access materials and equipment that is organised and well-labelled.

4. Testing zones: Designated space for students to run their code, observe results and recognise that failure is part of the development process!

5. Assessment of the engineering design process, not just the output

With the availability technologies like AI, it is becoming clear that finding ways to assess the process as well as the outcome is increasingly important.

The 2022 Revised National Curriculum General Guidelines (2022 개정 초중등학교 교육과정) recognises this, with the press release stating,

"The often used expressions of 'to understand' and 'to explore' in the academic achievement standards outlined in the general guidelines will be more diversified so that rather than focusing on finding one answer, more emphasis will be put on the process of finding more than one answer in the classroom based on inquisitive and practice-based learning."

The setup of the Makerspace should include prevalent displays of the stages of the engineering process, computational thinking or other processes that students are expected to demonstrate. This should include a requirement for students to make a log of their development and record bugs and failures. Teacher evaluation can include judgements based on this process, as much as the success of the final outcome.

Conclusion

Recent developments in South Korea are such a good example because they emphasise the importance teaching thinking alongside technical proficiency. This approach is reflected in both the designs of Infinite Imagination Rooms (무한상상실, Muhan Sangsangsil), as well as the real, community-driven problem solving that Korean students engage in.

Makerspace design is the perfect opportunity to provide space for the development of children's thinking and communication skills, their technological proficiency and their desire to use technology to create a greener, more sustainable world. With careful consideration and the needs of both teachers and students as a priority, an effective Makerspace can be designed for an affordable budget, offering schools a valuable and needed addition to their teaching facilities.

Referenced: Ministry of Education, Republic of Korea, Press Release on the 2022 Revised Curriculum (link)

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – (United Nations) - https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment - Used according to the guidelines on the United Nations website, for non-commercial, educational purposes. The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States.