Toledo Tinkers: Through A Child's Eyes Framework
Toledo Tinkers is a comprehensive initiative designed by the Imagination Station Team to engage underserved parts of the Toledo community through a shared vision of culturally responsive tinkering experiences.
The goal of Toledo Tinkers is to work to increase high-quality STEAM education among diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds through a mobile tinkering laboratory, community programming and a community narrative exhibit.
For this project, we partnered with both local organizations and established professionals in the field of making and tinkering to maximize the impact of this program on our community. These partners include:
Project Advisors
- Meg Escudé
- Jonathon Doctorick, Carnegie Science Center
- Dr. Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University
- Dr. Karie Jo Peralta, University of Toledo
Our Mission
Imagination Station's making and tinkering initiatives are committed to continuous learning and innovation, while actively challenging inequities in STEAM education. Imagination Station equips learners from diverse communities with the tools, technology and confidence needed to realize their own visions. From impactful moments to sustained explorations, we demonstrate that making is for everyone.
The Need
Toledo Tinkers supports the development of an outreach curriculum delivered using a mobile tinkering lab. We understand STEAM learning has been proven to uniquely position individuals to be competitive in an increasingly technological economy. Yet many children and families in Toledo, Ohio do not have access to engaging STEAM experiences. A top-level goal of Imagination Station is to make science accessible to all members of our community. Imagination Station’s making and tinkering initiatives are committed to continuous learning and innovation, while actively challenging inequities in STEAM education and access.
To determine our areas of focus within the community, Imagination Station leverages the expertise of our partners, who are often well-connected to the overall need and available resources in different areas of the community. We also created a STEAM Desert map that we use as a guide to prioritize delivery in areas with limited access. Generally, Toledo is an area of particularly high need. According to data from 2018 to 2022 from the National Institute of Health, both Toledo (23.3%) and Lucas County (17.8%) exceed the average poverty rate of both Ohio (13.3%) and the nation (12.5%). In the city of Toledo, nearly 20,000 children under 18 years of age live in poverty, nearly one in every three children.
STEAM Desert:
In many urban settings, including our own, there is a disparity in access to quality STEAM education and resources. We identified areas of high priority for program delivery as STEAM deserts, which is similar in concept to food deserts. We identified barriers to accessing high quality STEAM education, such as lack of public transportation, financial constraints or sociological factors. An area was flagged as a STEAM desert if its local school’s 5th-grade science test score average was below the state of Ohio’s average score in the year 2019. This identification system provided us with specific zip codes in the Toledo area where we could set our highest priorities for program delivery.
Mobile Tinkering Lab:
Engagement with STEAM concepts is important in all traditional and nontraditional career pathways. In October of 2019, the Federal Reserve announced that Toledo holds the top spot among the 121 largest cities in the nation for “opportunity occupations.” These positions, which do not require a four-year degree and pay over the national annual median wage, are often in the advanced manufacturing sector. These occupations require 21st-century skills that can be taught through high-quality making and tinkering initiatives. As young people become more self-assured, they envision the possibilities that lie ahead. With more students interested in STEAM, these professions will grow, helping to create a community celebrated for its diversity.
Making and tinkering activities engage students in hands-on, open-ended skill-building projects that encourage innovative thinking and problem-solving. They are powerful tools for engaging children and families with STEAM education and inquiry-based learning. Additionally, the experiences that can be provided with a mobile tinkering laboratory are experiences that the targeted population may not have access to otherwise. The mobile lab contains top-of-the-line equipment such as 3D printers, laser cutters and several robotic elements. Not only do we give students the opportunity to use the equipment; we also empower them with the confidence and skills needed to operate such materials successfully, through our teaching approaches.
Who We Support:
The main beneficiaries of our program are children 11-13 years old and their families living in marginalized parts of our community. We chose this middle-school age because this is when students begin to consider career options, and when young people often lose interest in the sciences. Research shows students are three times more likely to pursue STEAM fields in college and beyond if they have demonstrated an interest by eighth grade.
While the initial goal of this project was to support middle school students, after three years of programming, we have found tinkering is beneficial for students of all ages. When we started working with our program partners, we quickly learned that there was a need to support students at the high school level, as well as upper elementary age. The next section will discuss partner locations, many of which are afterschool programs that serve children of a variety of ages. Oftentimes in the afterschool setting, we were not able to isolate the middle school students for program delivery nor did we want to after seeing the interest from other ages. We have served students in grades K-12 throughout the course of this project, and the programming has proven to be beneficial for every age.
Toledo Tinkers is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Grant #MA-245768-OMS-20). Additionally, this work is supported by the Stranahan Foundation, General Motors Corporate Giving, KeyBank Foundation, Columbia Gas/NiSource Charitable Foundation, Toledo Rotary Club Foundation through the Greater Toledo Community Foundation, the Elsie and Harry Baumker Charitable Foundation and the Target Foundation.
