Making a Hoopla: Stanislaus County event seeks to encourage hands-on learning

Scrap cardboard or circuit boards. Musical instruments or machinery. No matter the materials used by creative minds, all are fair game for the Stanislaus County Office of Education’s first Maker Hoopla.

The free event for kindergartners through sixth-graders and their families will be May 20 in downtown Modesto, but exhibitor submissions are due by Feb. 15.

The aim of the hands-on Hoopla is to provide a social environment that encourages students to learn through doing. The ultimate selection of activities should allow kids to create, design, explore and invent.

SCOE is looking for anybody with a talent or skill to share, from teaching kids to sew to teaching them about Raspberry Pi, an increasingly popular way to do computer programming, said organizer Amy Zschaber, VAPA (visual and performing arts) and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) coordinator for the county office.

A long list of suggested topics on the event’s online exhibitor application – at https://goo.gl/7cCkTH – includes robotics, homegrown drones, Lego projects, sustainability/green tech, unusual tools or machines, puppets, kites and whimsical projects.

Kindergarten through 12th-grade students are welcome to present, as long as a teacher or another adult sponsor is present. Zschaber noted a class in which students build and invent using scrap cardboard. “They will bring some of their inventions and scrap cardboard (for attendees to work with) and will talk about how you can invent something to make with cardboard.”

Hoping the Hoopla becomes an annual event, the biggest challenge this first time out is helping people wrap their heads around all it could encompass. Exhibitors could guide children in making things they can take home, or could present things they’ve made and let children see what they do, though the aim of the Hoopla leans more to the former.

“Lots of kids don’t have the opportunity to do as much hands-on learning in schools as we’d like,” Zschaber said. “The maker movement is a good fit. ... If parents can see the power of learning through hands-on exploration, they might demand more of that in schools. I think parents don’t know that they can ask for those things.”

To present the Maker Hoopla, SCOE applied for and received a grant through the Education Foundation of Stanislaus County, she said. Some of that will go to buying as much as $100 in materials for each exhibitor to use during the event. “We don’t want anyone to come feeling like they’re donating time and have to spend a bunch of money on supplies, too,” Zschaber said.

Organizers have begun talking with teachers and are just beginning to reach out to the local maker community. They’ve had a favorable reception so far and some soft commitments, Zschaber said.

“Part of the thing for me is we have so many amazing, talented people in our community, and our students need to know that,” she said. Not everyone will go to a four-year university and see a good return on the investment of time and money, she said. Many people find happiness and a good living in auto mechanics, artisanal work and other maker-type careers.

Exhibitors will be notified of their inclusion no later than Feb. 28. The Maker Hoopla will be May 20 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Martin G. Petersen Event Center, 720 12th St., Modesto. Closer to the date, attendance registration will be sought, Zschaber said. The aim is to schedule attendees in perhaps 90-minute time slots to avoid overcrowding.

For more information, contact Zschaber at 209-238-1337 or azschaber@stancoe.org.

This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 12:38 PM with the headline "Making a Hoopla: Stanislaus County event seeks to encourage hands-on learning."