June 8, 2016
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Students
Learn
Hands-On
Real-world meaning
comes with outreach
The ReBuilding Center in north Portland
and Portland Public Schools are teaming up to
bring science, technology, engineering, art and
math skills to nearly 200 seventh-graders.
With help from their classmates, teachers,
parents, ReBuilding Center volunteers, staff,
and partners, students are engaging in a hands-
on learning process where failure, experimen-
tation and creative solutions are encouraged.
In the last few weeks, a group of middle
school students from West Sylvan and Cesar
Chavez have designed and built their own
three-string guitars using repurposed and do-
nated materials. Two more groups from Lane
and George middle schools started the process
this week.
This initiative is part of the ReBuilding Cen-
ter’s new ReFind Center—a fully equipped
wood shop intended to educate and serve the
community. Each class spends three days
learning the scope of what is possible, proto-
typing their designs, and working with local
fabricators, designers, and other role models
to apply real-world meaning to their classroom
learning. Students learn about design process-
es that apply to everything from architecture to
software development.
This initiative gives teachers the opportuni-
ty to show the relevance of their lessons while
students put new meaning to esoteric subjects
such as how sound and sine waves relate. This
project was co-developed by the ReBuilding
Center’s Volunteer Services Manager, Dave
Lowe, and makerspace expert Mike Alfoni.
A Portland student crafts a three-
string guitar with recycled materials
from the ReBuilding Center in north
Portland as part of hands-on learning
where failure, experimentation and
creative solutions are encouraged.
Page 9
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