Let’s talk kindness! This collection is in honor of Fred Rogers from Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Mister Rogers taught children and adults emotional management, acceptance, tolerance, love and how to deal with the feelings inside that we just can’t put our finger on. He gave his advice to educators and members of the community to take a holistic approach to teaching the whole child and their spectrum of understanding. These lessons focus on expanding the educational topics of digital fabrication to social emotional ones as well.
3D Printed Mister Rogers Neighborhood Trolley
In this lesson students will design a 3D model of Mister Rogers Neighborhood Trolley. We will be looking at how he took a stand against racial inequality in 1969 when…
143 Pittsburgh’s Day of Kindness Vinyl Stickers
This lesson is a guided introduction to Mr. Rogers Day of Kindness. Students will create a vinyl sticker for their laptops, staff will assist in the design and fabrication of…
Mister Rogers Sweater Keychain
In this lesson students will design sweater keychains in honor of Mister Rogers. We will be looking at how his work in helping children develop socio-emotional skills inspired congress to…
about Wonderings from Pittsburgh
Mister Rogers spent his entire adult life teaching his audience racial justice, how to deal with difficult life events, and how to be kind to one another. I believe that it is our obligation as educators to democratize education to its fullest extent. The way I have found to do so is in bringing the life lessons that Mister Rogers taught me into the classroom.
IN THIS COLLECTION
These lessons are directly related to Mister Rogers and his ideological sensibilities on education and emotions. The first is a vinyl sticker that has the symbolic “143” on it. Mister Rogers always kept his weight at 143 pounds because there is one letter in “I”, four letters in “love”, and three letters in “you”. Next is a lesson outlining how to laser cut a keychain out of his beloved sweaters, which were all hand sewn by his mother. In the lesson we take a look at how he accomplished receiving 20 million dollars in funding for PBS just by discussing the emotional learning he did on his show with congress. And finally, a lesson to 3D print the famous trolley from his show taking the viewers into the “land of make-believe” while discussing the stand he took against racial injustice in the late 1960s.
Make a statement
In this lesson, students will use the engineering design process to make an item that promotes an environmental or social justice message. The students will research an area of interest…
December 13, 2024
understanding plant life cycle
During this lesson, I showed students the life cycle of a plant, using the example of an apple, and since the students had no experience with digital production, I showed…
December 11, 2024
Christmas Cards
This series of lessons will take you through how to make a Christmas card using the Brother ScanNCut and the circuit playground express. These lessons can be adapted to be…
December 8, 2024
CO2 Dragsters
In this series of lessons, you will take students through the design and production processes in order to create their own CO2 Dragster. As a class, you will design a…
December 7, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Balsa Glider
Students will design and fabricate a glider. Test its flight, then optimize their design by adjusting the shape of its wings, tail, or body. This activity will introduce two…
December 3, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Dice
Design your own 3D-printable dice! Use CAD (computer-aided design) software to build out an idea in three dimensions. Choose your dice geometry and decide what to put on each face.…
December 3, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Spinning Tops
Give engineering a spin: experiment with physics while designing and fabricating a custom spinning top! Get hands-on with energy, force, and momentum as you experiment with different 3D-printed designs. How…
December 3, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Botanical Press
Combine art and science: customize and fabricate a botanical press that can be used over and over again to preserve leaves and flowers for crafts or dissection.
December 3, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Stamps
Students will embark on a creative journey to design a personal logo that reflects their (or a brand’s) unique identities and values. By combining graphic design principles with self-reflection, they…
December 3, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Invention Kits
Create your very own invention kit! Design and laser cut a set of two-dimensional shapes that can slot together to make three-dimensional structures. Finished kits can be used for…
December 2, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Pop-Up Cards
Explore math, form, and function while engineering pop-up paper art. Use a vinyl cutter to make two-dimensional artwork “pop!” Add score and cut lines to cardstock to fabricate custom, folding…
December 2, 2024
Fab-in-a-Box Stickers
Design and fabricate your very own custom stickers! Use digital CAD software to bring your ideas to life before cutting them on the vinyl cutter. Whether you’re a budding graphic…
December 2, 2024
ScaleSpace – Visualizing the Solar System Through 3D Models
In this lesson, students will explore the vastness and diversity of the solar system by creating scale models of planets, moons, and other celestial objects. Using astronomical data, they will…
December 2, 2024
SHAPE BUILDERS
This lesson is designed to help students deepen their understanding of geometry – shapes and their attributes. Prior to the lesson, students must have been introduced to the vocabulary…
December 1, 2024
Chemical Bonding Game
Driving Question: How can we, as game designers, create a playable board or computer (Chromebook) game that teaches players the properties, behavior, and structure of ionic and covalent compounds? …
November 26, 2024
Human Eye Model: A Hands-On Investigation of the Functions of the Parts of the Eye
This lesson provides students a constructivist approach to learning the functions of the different parts of the human eye. Leading up to this lesson, students learned the properties of light…
November 21, 2024STANDARDS-ALIGNED
Community contributed lessons aligned with Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) offer formal educators innovative pathways to teaching content knowledge. The Fab I Can Statements are a resource to develop technology-literate learning progressions to align with content standards.
FAB TESTED
Periodically lessons are adapted and tested by the Fab Foundation team based on a call for submissions from fabbers, educators, and makers. Our inaugural set of lessons for the SCOPES-DF project were Fab Tested in 2016 and are tagged Fab Tested on the website.
OPEN-SOURCE VALUES
Lessons are distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC license, that permits free use and re-purposing by others.