Girl Makers

Making and Entrepreneurship

GEMS has expanded to include experiences for girls by helping them to develop confidence, creativity, and interest in science, technology, engineering, math, art, and learning as a whole through making and entrepreneurship.   (MakerEd Initiative)

Here is a great article on why making is so vital for our girls now.

Through our work with MakerCamps and the Maker Learning Collaborative, we are able to provide resources and suggestions for girls to tinker and learn. 

Grants are available from many of these organizations, and supplies are often furnished. And we all have fun. 

Resources for Making and Entrepreneurship

Pages of resources from K-12 MakerEd (Elementary, Middle, High)

Tinkering Projects and Resources from Home Advisor — Explanations and resources for beginning electronics and more. (Elementary, Middle, High)

Manufacturing Camps — grants for neighborhood camps–many specifically for girls (Middle, High)

MakerFaires— the greatest collection of people “making” (Elementary, Middle, High)

Sea Perch and MarineTech — two great organizations for building and deploying underwater robots (Elementary, Middle, High)

Renovated Learning — a great resource for understanding the process of “making” (Elementary, Middle, High)

Start your own business with Entrepreneur Girl  (Elementary, Middle, High)

Technovation  Girls for a Change–solving problems together using technology ( Middle, High)

E-Textiles–Flash, Sparkle and Spin–How to Sew Electronics 

Learning to use a LilyPad  from SparkFun–this company has many more tutorials on its site. (Elementary, Middle, High)

Light-up Cross Stitch  from TechAge Kids (Elementary, Middle, High)

Light it UP! from Science Buddies (Elementary, Middle, High)

Learning to make wearable clothing from the fabulous Make Community (Elementary, Middle, High)

Hands-on experiences are essential.

Soldering projects from Science Buddies (Elementary, Middle, High)

Makerspaces’ How to Solder (Elementary, Middle, High)

Kids Make YouTube Channel — as always, supervise this. Many fun ideas with instructions and tutorials (Elementary Middle, High)