San Lucas makerspace gives students and teachers a reason to celebrate after a challenging year.
Students and teachers celebrated the opening of a new makerspace during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at San Lucas Union School. The ceremony signaled a renewed start after a challenging year of distance and in-person learning during the pandemic. The makerspace is a place for students and teachers to learn, explore, experiment, collaborate and reconnect.
“The makerspace can help students consider ways to help solve problems of the 21st century,” said Jessica Riley, principal of the school and superintendent of the San Lucas Union School District. “The future is something they can be a part of and something they can change. It could all start here with a simple experiment.”
Former student Ricky Cervantes spoke at the event, sharing his thoughts with students about growing up in San Lucas and how lucky they were to be at a small school with teachers who can focus on their needs. Cervantes is a reliability specialist at Aera-San Ardo who started out at San Lucas Union School as a kindergartener.
“I feel so blessed to have gone to school here,” said Cervantes to the students. “When things at school seem to get hard, you just have to try harder. There’s no future if you give up. Your education is important if you want to have a successful future and you have to focus on that every single day.”
The makerspace features a variety of hands-on science exhibits, craft materials, and a 3-D printer donated by Aera Energy in support of education in rural southern Monterey County.
The Greenfield Community Science Mobile Lab and Monterey County Office of Education provided training for teachers on using the 3-D printer and helped design activities for students to complete in the makerspace such as introductory coding projects.
“It’s truly a space made possible through the generosity of a community coming together to support local students, but it will do so much more,” said Riley. “Sometimes when you are living in a rural and removed area, it becomes easy to forget you are a part of a bigger world. The makerspace will enable our students to envision their place in a much bigger, global society.”