Klint Kanopka still remembers the time when technology’s purpose in school could be boiled down to defeating your classmates on the Oregon Trail.
“And even shop class used to carry a negative stigma, and it was never really taken seriously,” Kanopka said.
Today, the flourishing of makerspaces in Philadelphia is meeting a local tech community commitment to growing STEM learning in schools to bring about new goals .
Earlier this year, the makerspace at the Academy at Palumbo was just a storage room. Kanopka, a physics teacher at the school, recognized an opportunity to turn it into a space for innovation and hands-on learning. With the help of a crowdfunding campaign, it’s becoming something more.
“It’s still slow, it’s still growing, and we’re still getting more stuff in here,” Kanopka said.
Academy at Palumbo physics teacher Klint Kanopka. Photo by Chris Montgomery for…
