Abstract
Makerspaces provide a viable option for constructing and sharing knowledge in schools. Inherent in the designing, tinkering, and playing that learners engage in through making are competencies, such as the ability to create, problem solve, and innovate, decreed as critical by education policymakers. This paper summarizes results from a study in a Canadian elementary school in which a researcher and a sixth grade teacher worked collaboratively to co-design, enact, and reflect on a makerspace project focused on sky science. Results with students showed higher engagement, deeper learning, and a way of being that extended beyond the study of one science topic. Results with the teacher demonstrated changes in pedagogical thinking about learning designs to enhance students’ abilities to develop their own questions, to build models in attempts to answer those questions, and to embody the ontology of a scientist.
