Makerspaces Provide a World of Opportunities

As of late it seems that I have been blogging a great deal about our makerspace here at New Milford High School and with good reason. Not only is the space being overrun with students during their lunch periods, but teachers here have begun to explore how the process of making can enhance the learning experience for the students in their classes. Just last week I shared on my blog how physics classes were exploring concepts related to circuitry in a more hands-on, authentic fashion in our constantly evolving space through a collaboration between Mr. Fowler and Mrs. Fleming.  It seems that this might have been a catalyst for even more collaborations in order to fully take advantage of what a well-designed makerspace can provide.

While studying the unit on Promotion in Marketing class and addressing the chapter of Visual Merchandising and Display as a form of promotional strategies to sell products and services, Mrs. Vicari thought about a design project that was assigned last year.  In an effort to make this project more meaningful, she thought about our school store, which is currently being redesigned and reopened.  She then challenged the students to use all the elements of Visual merchandising and display to create a model of what our school store should look like.  

Their project was to consist of designing NMHS’s school store that included a storefront, sign, entrance, window display, selling space, storage space, personnel space, customer space, color, lighting, graphics, paint, fixtures, a point of purchase display and props. Collaborating with NMHS media specialist Laura Fleming, who introduced Mrs. Vicari to Tinkercad, she challenged the students to use this website to create a 3-D model of their school store, which could be printed out in plastic using the Makerbot 3-D printer that is a main component of our makerspace.  The students also elaborated on their design with a written explanation that included all the elements of visual merchandising.

You can check out the written portion of this project HERE.