For those of you who haven’t been following along with my last few posts, our fifth and sixth grade student-run business, FH Gizmos, landed a manufacturing contract with Slack. Slack tasked us with making 50 desk toys for employees to use in their new education center. To read an indepth account of our experience check out this awesome article from a local paper, Red Bank Green.
For those of you that have been following along, we did it! This past week, the last week of school, we received the first of fifty S-shaped fidget spinners!
The year ended with a bang. We were featured in a host of local papers for our work with Slack, which caught the attention of the regional buyer of Barnes & Noble who said she was interested in working with us. We also finished the year working with Mrs. Daverso, Phlebotomy Supervisor for Riverview Hospital. She taught students about the phlebotomy process as we tried to make the blood drawing experience better for children. Barnes & Noble and Mrs. Daverso will be back in in September to continue our work together. The future’s looking bright!
Further, as we end the year on these high notes, I have a much clearer idea on the final evolution of our makerspace. After a lot of networking, calling in favors, and support from my board and Superintendent, we’ll be turning our makerspace into an amazing new program called Fair Haven Innovates.
Fair Haven Innovates: Fair Haven Innovates is Fair Haven school district’s 21st century life, careers, and technology program. We use social entrepreneurship to help students learn the skills they’ll need to be successful when they grow up. Students sell products and solve problems as they run real businesses turning real profits. Students use a percentage of the profits to give back to their community through their student-run charity FH Gives. Below are our programs.
The Innovation Lab (4th and 5th grade): The Innovation Lab is where 4th and 5th graders learn the skills they’ll need to be successful in the world of tomorrow. Students are introduced to design thinking, engineering, computer science, and the digital arts as they learn to reframe failure as iteration and become the architects of their future. The Innovation Lab is the farm league for the rest of Fair Haven Innovates.
FH Gizmos (6th Grade): will be a student-run startup that focuses on solving people’s tame problems and selling the solutions. We will start the year selling the custom fidget spinners we created. Since we were successful designing for Slack, we think we can pitch other big companies to work with us. In all, FH Gizmos made close to $3,000 this year. We hope to 10x that next year!
FH Grows (7th Grade): is where students learn to be stewards of the environment as they use innovative gardening techniques and the Internet of Things to grow and monitor (with Cayenne) vegetables as well as sell dried herbs and spices. Key partnerships will allow for the constant support of the students and program through the Rutgers Master Gardeners, an executive chef to cook with students through the school year, and the ability to have student-run Farmers Markets at both of our schools because after talking with our awesome elementary school principal, Mrs. Cuddihy, we see a lot of potential for my 7th graders to work with her 3rd graders in a project we’re calling FH Cares. Further, FH Grows will embrace NJ’s Farm to School initiative with the help of the Dept. of Agriculture. There is also the possibility of introducing students to incubation (businesses, not chickens) and the opportunity to learn about venture capitalism thanks to our partnership with Real World Scholars, but this part is in the early planning stage.
FH Leads (8th grade): FH Leads is a consulting firm where students team up with local businesses to solve their real world business challenges. We currently have 25 businesses on board as well as Riverview hospital. Students will be able to do site visits, surveys, interviews, and conduct experiments to help business owners solve their challenges while also learning about potential careers.
FH Gives – 25% of all profits from FH Gizmos, FH Grows, and FH Leads will be donated to our student-run charity FH Gives. FH Gives is currently set to run a pet adoption with the Monmouth County SPCA in November. The idea that students will be running a charity instead of giving to charity is an important part of this program that I will talk more about soon.
Thank you for taking this ride with me as I try to find new ways to introduce my students to the things that matter and evolve my makerspace into a district wide program with the hopes of inspiring other educators and changing the world.
Until Next Time,
GLHF and see you at ISTE