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Makerspaces foster innovation through hands-on experimentation. Participants have the opportunity to be creative and apply personalized learning strategies to make changes to existing concepts or develop their own ideas, methods or products.

MONTHLY MAKER MENU 2023-24

October - KEVA Design Challenge - Build a Fish Ladder
November - Mishoon Challenge
December - Stop Motion
January - Lego Build & Race
February - Breaker Space
March - Textiles and Sewing 
April - Mazes and Pathways
May - National Parks

May-ker Space: Nature Journaling, Animal Tracks, Shells from Cumberland Island, Building NPS landmarks with KEVA & more in May's National Park Maker Space

APRIL MAKER SPACE - MAZES AND PATHWAYS

MARCH MAKER SPACE - SEWING AND TEXTILES

October Maker Space
​KEVA DESIGN CHALLENGE
​Building Fish Ladders 

Thank you to the Salmon Super Highway for partnering with us for this STEM challenge

Jacob Jesionek,  Restoration Project Manager  with Trout Unlimited, explains how the The Salmon Super Highway project uses STEM to restore access to almost 180 miles of blocked habitat throughout six major salmon & steelhead rivers of Oregon’s North Coast.

🐟 FISH LADDER CHALLENGE ​🐟

Fat Bears depend on salmon to fatten up for hibernation.  Unfortunately some habitats and ecosystems have been disrupted by man.  Salmon must swim upstream to complete their lifecycle, but sometimes dams and roads block the river.  In addition to replacing culverts like in the Salmon Super Highway project, engineers have designed some other ways to help the salmon get upstream. Examples include:
  • Fish ladders (a series of steps up the vertical distance of the dam; fish ladders mimic a series of low, natural waterfalls, which is something that salmon are able to navigate by leaping)
  • Fish elevators or fish lifts (a mechanical way to raise fish up from the bottom of a dam to the top part of the reservoir so they can continue to swim upstream)​
  • Sound/light/bubble diversion devices (devices that emit underwater sound, light and/or bubbles as "behavioral barriers" to scare fish away from turbine intakes)
  • Bypass barges (big flat boats that collect and transport fish over a dam through a lock system, releasing them downstream from the dam)

​NOAA - What is a fish ladder

If students have finished the challenge and there is still time, they can design a bridge to go over a stream that replaced a culvert - as seen in the Salmon Super Highway video. 

Click to view the Underwater Salmon Camera or the Brooks Falls live cam on explore.org

All teachers who submits photos will be entered into a drawing for Salmon Super Highway bling!

Want to learn more about fish ladders - watch this 12 minute video by the Army Corp of Engineers

NOVEMBER - Mishoon Challenge

So what is a mishoon?  During the 17th century, the mishoon–a traditional Native American canoe–was the most common boat in North American waters. A typical 17th-century mishoon was created from a giant tree and capable of carrying 40 men.
So how does one create a mishoon? Picking the tree is the first step of course. After the tree is selected, it was burned down by wrapping clay around the trunk and burning the roots. The log would then be worked with using fire.  By burning into the widest point of the tree a natural keel is created, where the bottom of the boat is thicker than its sides. Historically, mishoons were burned 24 hours a day, since the longer the fire was maintained the hotter it would get. Typically, it would take about 10-12 days for mishoons to be created in the 17th century. Although this seems like a long time, trees during this period were typically over 150 feet tall and 6 feet wide, capable of creating the mishoons that could carry 40 men.
Click on image for the 4 minute challenge video
Clic here to view the Mishoon Challenge Video on the Stem Infusion page
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