Making Our Spaces Special​: A Grants in Place update from Bottineau, North Dakota

June 10, 2019 |
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Alysa Palmer's "Making Our Spaces Special" received a $1000 Grants in Place award to support the creation of a Makerspace at Bottineau High School that would be located in the school library, providing a variety of STEAM-related opportunities for participating students.

Our North Dakota Grants in Place program is in cooperation with our North Dakota Hub with funding provided by the Rural Schools Collaborative.

We are pleased to provide this final report from Ms. Palmer:

"Thank you so much for providing this grant opportunity to our High School Library! The kids have been thrilled and the area is used daily (before school, lunch, and 8th hour). I laugh a little too because if I ever have classes in here, they try to sneak items from the Makerspaces area to use instead of working on their classwork. It has been so much fun for me to see the positive social interaction taking place between our students. There are always groups of at least 3 and sometimes up to 6 working on the activities. It also has given the students something positive to do with their time, instead of sitting on their phones and not communicating. The biggest surprise to me has been the popularity of the board games (chess, checkers, and mancala) and card games (UNO). We constantly have students playing these games and had to purchase extra sets to keep up with the demand. The technology part of our grant hasn’t been as successful as we were hoping as we are still working out the logistics, but the goal is for them to be up and running at the start of the new school year. Students will love this addition and it will give them something to look forward to for next year.

With the funds you provided us, we were able to expand our Makerspaces area. This area now includes the following: Zoob Builderz, Keva Planks, Board games, Card games, Perler beads, Cricut, 3D pens, Sphero, Bloxels, Ozobot, Osmo, and Animation Studio.

Thanks again so much for this opportunity! Our students are very grateful!"

We invite you to read this earlier update on "Making Our Spaces Special". This grant was made in cooperation with the North Dakota Small Organized Schools, our North Dakota Hub anchor. Special thanks to ElRoy Burkle, executive director of NDSOS, and Steven Johnson, an RSC Advocate and superintendent in Lisbon, North Dakota.

We invite you to learn more about our 2018-19 Grants in Place program! Also, we encourage you to check out our web section on the value of place-based education.

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