A Makerspace Bonanza: Circulatory and Heart Model Creation

A makerspace is a great tool for any student-centered classroom. Not only does it provide supplies it also inspires ideas. It gets students tinkering and designing. It opens their minds to new ways of doing things and it fosters cooperation and collaboration. I have a big makerspace that crosses down the middle of my room. This allows students to access it from both sides. I ask for donations from parents and generally receive a lot of recyclables and art supplies. I add paper, felt and plenty of markers and crayons and tah-dah! a makerspace ready to spark the imagination.

Today was a day of beads, pipe cleaners, wiki sticks, Play-Doh and lots of recyclables.  The makerspace was a cornucopia of supplies for students to design and create their model of the heart and the Circulatory System. Today was all about bringing the unit on the Cardiovascular System to a close and having them use their knowledge to demonstrate their understanding, through artistic and visual measures. I always prefer a hands-on approach and this was just that. Lots of sticky hands and fingers as students were thinking outside the box to build hearts and blood vessels.

They were given these directions:

Include in your model and label:

1. heart (four chambers and Aorta)

2. cells, tissue, muscles, organ

3. Veins

4. arteries

5. capillaries

6. oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood

7. blood: red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, platelets

8. Draw arrows- pathway of blood

9. Gas exchange

The following pictures are what they began to assemble. Monday they will complete them and then Wednesday they are going to add the lungs and the Respiratory System to the model. It may take a day or two to complete a detailed model like this but it is well worth it. Every student was engaged and interacting with their team. They dug through containers and were pulling out odds and ends and thus, there is such variety it is just awesome.

Monday and Wednesday I will write a blog post showing their progress and the completed models of the Circulatory and Respiratory Systems.