Volunteers sought for Sky View Middle School Make-a-thon
Educators and community members will join middle school students to explore electrical engineering, design, and programming ideas at a Make-a-thon event on Wednesday, November 15 from 1 to 7 pm at Sky View Middle School.
Hosted by Sky View Middle School in partnership the High Desert Education Service District’s Career and Technical Education program, organizers are seeking community volunteers to participate. NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED!
“Middle school is a great time to unleash the capacity for creativity and innovation,” said Angie Mason-Smith, CTE Instructional Specialist for HDESD’s Career and Technical Education program. “We need community volunteers to be part of this fun-packed day of exploration and creative problem solving.”
According to Mason-Smith, community volunteers do not need experience in electrical engineering, design, and programming. The goal of the Make-a-thon model is to bring together a diverse set of perspectives (students, educators, community members) in a non-typical environment where teams are challenged to learn, design, and create solutions together.
The Make-a-thon model was developed by Innovate Oregon, an initiative designed to inspire and create a culture of inventive problem solving, empowering the next generation of innovators to take on Oregon’s biggest challenges. With support from Spark Fun Electronics, students, teachers, and community members will learn the basics of building and programming electronic circuits. Next, teams will be formed to use those circuits to prototype solutions to a real-world problem. A showcase will be held at the end of the event to demonstrate the prototypes.
“When community volunteers participate in the Make-a-thon, they are sending a message to Central Oregon youth. They are telling students that we care about them, their education and their future. That’s a powerful message,” said Mason-Smith.
To learn more about the Sky View Make-a-thon, or to register, visit: sites.google.com/innovateoregon.org/skyview-makeathon/home
