The AIMS Center is excited to announce our role in supporting powerful and relevant making through the Making Spaces program – a collaboration that seeks to transform youth experiences through making, tools, resources, partnerships, and collective growth. Making Spaces is designed to transform teaching and learning through the power of making.

The Making Spaces Program is led by Maker Ed with support from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and development and improvement efforts are supported by Google’s Making & Science Initiative and Cognizant’s Making the Future Program. Maker Ed partners with Regional Hubs, who then work with local sites to train, enact, and sustain maker-centered learning. Since 2016, the Making Spaces program has engaged one cohort of Hubs per year, reaching 21 Hubs, almost 200 schools, 350 educators, and an estimated 26,000 youth. The AIMS Center has been named as a Regional Hub and is the only such Hub between the Bay Area and Mexico.

As a Making Spaces Regional Hub, AIMS works with partner schools or organizations over two years to develop a vision for each site’s maker-centered programming, grow pedagogical strategies, shift educator practices, build capacity for integrating making in meaningful ways, raise community awareness around making, and develop funding strategies. Beginning in Fall 2021, we are committed to supporting four Central Valley organizations in engaging young people and families in high-quality maker education.