PLAYSHOPS

ABOUT

Our Playshops are dedicated to playful learning with creative materials. Using a maker-centered learning framework, we explore tinkering, collaboration, and design with a variety of tools and technologies. Each Playshop invites participants to share their own ideas, artifacts, stories, and experiences. We use these collaborative experiences to explore how to design learning-through-making experiences that are interest-driven and equitable for young people.

TIME & LOCATION

Doors open at 8:30am with a light breakfast. Sessions run from 9am - 12pm.

All Playshops take place at the AIMS Center for Math and Science Education:

1595 S Chestnut Ave, Fresno, CA 93702

Featured

Feb 7

Coding Your Story

Creative Coding With Apps - What stories can we create with coding programs?

Computer coding is not difficult. You don’t have to know any secret language or symbols. You can use easy to understand apps like Scratch and Octostudio. That’s what we will investigate. We will show how devices and physical materials can interact to help tell our stories.

Mar 7

Scratching the Surface

What is surface tension? How might we utilize this force to do interesting things?

Have you ever seen an insect “walking” on water? How does that work? What other mysteries does water hold? This Playshop will have us experimenting with water and surface tension. You will be amazed at what you might discover.

Apr 11

Here Comes the Sun

How does a solar cell create electricity?

We know that solar power can lower our power bills, but can it do anything else? What if we could build some mechanical devices that run on solar power? Let’s try! Come play with solar power, build, tinker, and create, all with the power of the sun.