There is growing concern in the United States that our supply of STEM-workers is unable to keep up with the increasing demands. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (2016) points to “persistent diversity challenges” as one of the major reasons for this STEM employment gap. Despite numerous efforts to incentivize a more diverse group of individuals to pursue a STEM career, the fields are consistently dominated by white and Asian males at disproportionately high numbers. In this study, I explore ways that the maker movement could help.
The Maker culture offers new learning pathways to STEM careers and is founded on principles of openness and inclusiveness. To evaluate this movement, I went on a personal journey to become a maker within the Arduino community. My personal experiences (which are documented in this blog) help to shed light on the encouraging aspects of the maker movement, as well as issues that need to be addressed to make the movement more inclusive.
This blog serves as a learning portfolio for this journey. Observations, self-reflection journals, transcripts, and field notes were all used to collect data and have been added to this blog to give a chronological view of my development as a maker and my beliefs of the community and culture.
For more information on the Maker Movement or this project, please read my final report: MAKEing-STEM-More-Inclusive-Buckley-28p2zsu
Source:
Office of Science and Technology Policy. (2016, February). STEM Depiction Opportunities. Retrieved from the White House website (Archived from Obama administration) https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/imageofstemdepictiondoc_02102016_clean.pdf