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LBJ Express engineers visited Charles M. Blalack Middle School’s science club for MakerSpace Technology Day and spoke to middle school students about their experiences with math, science ano every day for the LBJ Express highway project. Science club students enjoyed playing with the new technology and collaborating with their visitors.

Blalack Middle School is one of the six public middle schools that received new technology from the LBJ Express STEM education grant to kick off the new MakerSpace program. The $40,000 STEM education grant was awarded to Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District in August and after much planning is being used to implement MakerSpace programs for each middle school within the district.

“The goal of the grant is to expose each sixth- , seventh- and eighth-grader to technology at least twice a year and encourage creativity, problem solving, innovation and discovery,” said Dr. Kathryn Schaeffer, Executive Director for Advanced Academic Services and World Languages. Dr. Schaeffer is the grant visionary and author of the program title, Middle School Matters. She and the administration hope to see the MakerSpace program grow.

“We hope that with this grant MakerSpace will eventually become a part of the classroom experience. We want to expand time on campuses where MakerSpace can be open before school, during lunch time and after school so kids who are really driven to work in these areas can do so and teachers can go a bit further with their students through programming and planning in their own time. However, we know that math and science for every child is important so we want to touch every child because we don’t know exactly when the lightbulb will go off for a particular child or when an experiment will blow their mind.”

The LBJ Express STEM education grant has helped foster this type of new learning for the next generation.

“We want children to know that failure is a part of what we do every day. It builds a growth mindset and resilience for future thinkers and problem solvers. By working with real materials, you either fail or succeed or end up somewhere in the middle, but try after try you learn and begin to succeed,” stated Dr. Schaeffer.

Some of the new technology featured in the MakerSpace program includes educational tools like Makey Makey, Little Bits, Google Cardboard, Sphero Robotic Ball, Sprout and 3-D HP printers. The LBJ Express engineers and middle school students spent an entire afternoon in a very creative environment where they were encouraged to interact, experiment, build, create and learn. The LBJ Express team hopes to continue being involved in the classroom with their engineers and professional staff.