How Safe is Your Maker Space?
Activities and tools with inherent hazards can benefit from the unique expertise of engineering educators.
Opinion by Tyler S. Love and Kenneth R. Roy
For more than a decade, the maker movement has gained momentum on campuses worldwide as educators and institutions seek to foster entrepreneurial and collaborative STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning experiences. This has resulted in a proliferation of maker spaces—defined by the Oxford Dictionary as areas “in which people with shared interests, especially in computing or technology, can gather to work on projects while sharing ideas, equipment, and knowledge.” It is not uncommon to find maker spaces in public libraries, community centers, schools, university residence halls, and many other places. Even the White House has held Maker Faires.
While a number of STEM educator and librarian associations have supported the maker movement and implementation of maker spaces, these interdisciplinary facilities can appear vastly different from traditional engineering and science laboratories. Moreover, there has been limited discussion around collaboration in the planning, designing, and supervising of these spaces. Given the potentially hazardous nature of the equipment and activities in maker spaces—soldering, for example—there are some serious safety risks that cannot be ignored for health and liability reasons.
We discovered just how limited maker space planning can be after visiting schools for the past three years in search of quality examples for our articles, blog posts, and guidebook on building safer maker spaces and STEM and fab labs. It quickly became apparent that safety is either given short shrift (often due to cost-cutting efforts) or the designers are insufficiently aware of hazards or liability issues and how to adequately address them. We often were asked if K-12 students can be trained to supervise peers in a maker space, which would set the school up for a legal nightmare! Another frequent concern: Schools receive funds to create a maker space, purchase equipment, and then attempt to transform an empty classroom or corner of the library—without first thinking through potential safety hazards and who should supervise this area.
Engineering educators, with their expertise in design-based learning and access to the school’s technology and engineering laboratories (formerly known as shops), are uniquely qualified to ensure both appropriate instruction and practices for safer maker spaces. Indeed, our community should feel obliged to step up to the plate, given the laser cutters, heat presses, CNC routers, power tools, and other specialized equipment these spaces often feature.
In some engineering programs, fabrication shops are staffed with technicians, lab managers, or graduate assistants who assist or operate the equipment for students. By contrast, the task of supervising maker spaces often falls to those with limited to no training. This is not only an unsafe practice but also a significant professional liability issue. Moreover, unlike most preparation programs for technology and engineering educators, science education and librarian degree programs rarely include coursework addressing the safety of engineering tools and equipment found in maker spaces.
Collaborating with engineering educators from the initial planning phase through daily supervision of maker spaces could help avoid accidents and promote a culture of safety. Faculty or others with specialized knowledge, such as familiarity with federal and state workplace safety rules, should also be involved.
At the very least, engineering educators can raise awareness about safety concerns and the value of collaboration. One way to do that would be to find an integrative STEM design challenge, such as a biomedical project, that would require applying not only biological and engineering knowledge but also knowledge of materials, chemicals, and fabrication equipment safety—all topics that engineering educators can address. The International Technology and Engineering Educators Association’s monthly Safety Spotlight offers useful examples of emerging maker space issues, such as the April 2017 article on tools and equipment in nontraditional spaces. ITEEA also has a safety website with free videos, forms, and automatically graded tests on a variety of topics that can help with establishing safer maker space policies and procedures, while the Tufts University Maker Network provides excellent safety resources on a variety of hazardous items found in many maker spaces.
A recent Safety Spotlight article on the trend of converting classrooms to maker spaces only reinforces the need for urgency. What are the risks of placing fab labs in areas not originally designed with safety controls for such equipment and activities—and how do you address them? Beyond outlining the types of tools and furniture needed, planners must determine the appropriate occupancy load, install required engineering controls, provide adequate storage space, secure hazardous items, and develop proper supervision guidelines before opening a maker space.
Safety—of our students, employees, and the public—is paramount in everything we do, from program accreditation to a professional code of ethics. Who better to advocate for safer design-based learning in maker spaces than engineering educators?
Tyler S. Love, an assistant professor of education at Penn State Harrisburg, currently serves as editor of Safety Spotlight for the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association. Kenneth R. Roy is chief safety adviser for the National Science Teachers Association and director of environmental health and chemical safety for Glastonbury Public Schools in Connecticut. A free preview of their book, Safer Makerspaces, Fab Labs, and STEM Labs: A Collaborative Guide!, can be accessed at: https://sites.google.com/a/vt.edu/safetybook2017/