A Mobile STEAM Unit Gives Lander Youth a Much-Needed Maker Space

Many rural communities lack access to “Maker Spaces,” dedicated project-based learning environments where students can tinker, invent, and learn how to problem solve, communicate, work in teams, and develop the tenacity necessary for success. Local schools often can’t be the answer: most don’t have the structure to facilitate the kinds of project-based and hands-on learning that build twenty-first century skills. After hearing resoundingly from parents desperate for community-based STEAM and Maker Space programming for their children, a staffer at the Wyoming After School Alliance, in partnership with the Lander Children’s Museum, had an idea: transfer a new, unused trailer from the local library and retrofit it to be a mobile Maker Space unit. With funding from LOR, which covered the purchase of teaching, building, and marketing materials, and with plenty of support from volunteers and other community members, the group was able to outfit the trailer with shelves of materials that include nuts and bolts, copper wire, various crafts, LEGO bricks, K’Nex, and more.