🌎 Repair Brings Us Together

May 2026

Dear Newsletter Subscribers,

We’re excited to share two terrific ways to stay connected and engaged with the global repair movement: 

• October 17th is the 10 anniversary of International Repair Day, hosted by an international collaboration of repair groups organized by The Restart Project

• The Repair and Share Summit videos, hosted by Repair x Reuse Washington

As always, we invite you to explore our Educator Resource Library and Notes from the Field for curriculum, supplemental tools, stories, and inspiration from educators and repair advocates from around the world.

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International Repair Day
Saturday, October 17th

This year marks the 10th anniversary of International Repair Day, an annual celebration of repair in communities around the world.

This year’s focus is on:

How repair brings us together

Fixing beloved and useful items builds stronger communities, and we know first hand how repair creates meaningful opportunities for connections between people of all ages and skill levels, as well as across socioeconomic and demographic labels that are too often points of division.

Stay tuned for more details and ideas about how you can join in celebrating repair this International Repair Day. 

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Repair and Share Summit

We were excited to join Repair Economy Washington's Repair & Share Summit: Building the Care Economy, and to connect with many inspiring people advancing repair for youth and adults in their communities.

The Culture of Repair Project founder, Vita Wells, hosted a conversation on Repair Education – Teaching Repair in K-12 Schools, highlighting ways educators are bringing repair into the classroom, helping students cultivate a repair mindset while developing cognitive, fine motor and social skills.

A special thank you to presenters Sam Bennett, Debbie Lenz, and the team at Rudolf Steiner School in Munich -- Marek Blaszczynski, Claudia Munz, and Tommy Juergensen -- for sharing their experiences and insights.

You can explore more from these educators in our Educator Resource Library, including:

→ Regenerational Fashion Repair Series — Sam Bennett

→ Fixing Things For the Future — Rudolf Steiner School, Munich

→ Berkeley Unified School District’s STEM / Maker Class Repair Unit — Debbie Lenz

→ Debbie’s Note From The Field 

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Fix-it Fest! 🛠️ & an Abundance of Teaching Resources from Berkeley!

February 2026

In this newsletter... 

• BUSD's Spring Community Fix-it Fest on February 28, 2026

• Berkeley is a MODEL for bringing repair into schools

  • Hear from educators and students!

  • Check out what they're doing and the resources they've created!

• Repair & Share Virtual Summit: March 19-20, 2026 (Education sessions!)

• Grant Application Reminder: Due March 2, 2026

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Berkeley Unified School District’s Spring Community Repair Event

Saturday, February 28, 2026 from 1:00 - 3:30
Longfellow Middle School, 1701 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, California

A Berkeley Unified School District Climate Literacy Initiative and Middle School MakerSpace event, in collaboration with Transition Berkeley, Nimble Repair, & The Culture of Repair Project. Bring your broken electronics, appliances, toys, bikes, clothes, small furniture and more to the Fix-it Fest. Learn a new skill and help reduce waste in our community. Thank you Patagonia San Franscisco for your support!

For Information, to Volunteer, or to Pre-Register an Item: Click Here

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Understanding Berkeley's Model for
Bringing Repair into Schools: 
Educators, Community Volunteers, and Students

Steven Rivera teaching the repair unit at Willard Middle School, Berkeley, California USA

Repair enriches teaching across subjects, addresses environmental issues straight-on, and offers schools opportunities to serve their communities.

Repair advocates materially advance their objectives through engaging with schools. 

Recognizing that, Berkeley Unified School District (California, USA) has embraced repair and developed a robust, multifaceted program in which local repair advocates are deeply involved.

Berkeley offers a model for how a school system can engage with the global repair movement and locally expand a culture of repair. It's also a model for how, through working with schools, repair advocates can turbocharge their work in the community. 

The BUSD approach is supported materially by four Berkeley-based organizations that center repair in their work: Transition Berkeley, Nimble Repair, The Culture of Repair Project, and Fixit Clinic. The High School Robotics Team and the Sustainable Fashion Club are involved, along with multiple school district departments -- information technology, buildings and grounds sustainability, and the Climate Literacy Initiative (curriculum). The City of Berkeley's Zero Waste and YouthWorks programs and Berkeley Public Schools Fund also participate. 

This issue of the newsletter focuses on educators and students. Stay tuned for a future issue highlighting advocates' impactful work in educational settings.

We invite you check out the "Notes from the Field" and "Educator Resource Library" entries that follow for the what's, why's, how-to's, and inspiration:

• MakerSpace/STEM teacher Debbie Lenz on bringing repair into her classroom

• Middle School MakerSpace Repair Curriculum 

• High School Robotics Team leaps into repair

• Fix-it Fest: a school district-hosted community repair event

• Chromebook Rescue Program

• District-wide Climate Literacy coordinator Ellen McClure champions repair

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Notes from the Field is a series of essays and reports from educators and repair advocates who put repair at the heart of their teaching and organizing.

These accounts offer models for teaching repair in real-world contexts – from classrooms and makerspaces to libraries, community centers, and other educational settings.

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Debbie Lenz, Building a Culture of Repair in Middle School MakerSpaces

Berkeley's middle-school STEM and MakerSpace teacher Debbie Lenz brought repair into the classroom. Learn about her vision, the details of the program, and how she implemented it.  

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Translating Robotics Team Skills and Knowledge into Repairing for the Community

Berkeley High School Robotics Team members are volunteer fixers at BUSD community repair events. Read about how Berkelium is a model for how other robotics teams can advance the global repair movement. 

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Ellen McClure, Climate Literacy Initiative Launches Repair Curriculum and Community Events 

Ellen McClure, BUSD Climate Literacy Coordinator, writes about how repair relates to Climate Literacy.

Read about working with the district and community repair advocates to integrate repair into the middle-school STEM / MakerSpace program, and to launch Fix-it Fests.

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Chromebook Rescue Program

BUSD’s technology and sustainability departments and the Climate Literacy Initiative are working with the Berkeley Public Schools Fund and Fixit Clinic to refurbish obsoleted Chromebooks for distribution to under-resourced students and families. The program trains students, addresses the digital divide, implements good stewardship of devices that might have gone to landfill, and introduces opportunities to teach about sustainability and e-waste.

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Featured Berkeley Resource!

Berkeley Unified School District’s STEM / MakerSpace Class Repair Unit
*Updated! *

Curriculum, lesson plans, and slides for teaching a beginner one-week repair unit in a middle school STEM / MakerSpace class. 

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Educators + Advocates = Impact

Stay tuned for a future issue celebrating advocates making a difference.

Community Repair Events and Schools

Schools hosting community repair events, with the support of local repair advocates, catapults both educator and advocate objectives forward, far more than either could do on their own. Click HERE to read about synergies, benefits, what it looks like, and how-to.  

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Repair Advocates in the Classroom

When repair advocates support teachers’ in-class repair instruction, the objectives of both educators and advocates are advanced more than either could do on their own. Click HERE to read about synergies, benefits, tools, what it looks like, and how-to.

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Have you used the Educator Resource Library?

Let us know! Your feedback helps us grow and shape the tools we share.
We invite you to suggest additions to the Library or to Notes from the Field.

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Save the Date!
Repair & Share Summit:
Building the Care Economy
March 19-20

Join us at the Repair Economy Washington Repair & Share Summit: Building the Care Economy. We will attend and host sessions about repair education. See you there!

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Grant Applications Due March 2, 2026

We support teachers and community advocates who are bringing repair into primary and secondary schools. Repair is more than a technical skill; it’s a mindset and a way of engaging with the world. 

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🎒Taking Repair into the Classroom

SEPTEMBER 2025

In this newsletter... 

• Kits and Carts – Cool tools for teaching repair in the classroom and at home

• What happens when maker classrooms lean into teaching repair

• How learning to repair can happen through play 

• Repair Everywhere! Makerspace, Climate Literacy, and Science class are all entry points for repair

Berkeley Unified School District 2025 Climate Fair, California USA – Credit Vita Wells

Taking Repair into the Classroom

The essays and resources featured here highlight inspiring and ready-to-use approaches that make repair an engaging and powerful part of any learning environment. While repair isn’t yet a standard in most schools, we hope these stories spark ideas for weaving it into the learning spaces you create. 

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Notes from the Field is a series of essays from educators and repair advocates who put repair at the heart of their teaching and organizing.

These accounts offer insights into and can serve as models for teaching repair in real-world contexts – from classrooms and makerspaces to libraries, community centers, and other educational settings.

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Kimberley Schroder,  Empowering Students through Hands-On Lamp Repair

Kimberley’s workshops demonstrate how repair brings critical thinking, real-world problem-solving, and basic physics concepts into the classroom, while also making space for urgent conversations like caring for the environment.

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Zoe Athanasiou, Repair in the Classroom: Empowering the Next Generation of Fixers

Zoe explains the thinking behind Team Repair’s kits and how they work: Transform how children engage with science and technology through fixing real objects. Home kits include strategically broken gadgets, tools, parts and repair guides. Classroom kits also include teaching instructions, worksheets, lesson plans and more.

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Jimmy Santosa, Burke’s School Third Graders Dive Into Repair

Inspired by Berkeley’s Fix-It Fest and our Educator Resource Library, Jimmy brought a repair unit to his third-grade makerspace. With parents and grandparents as repair coaches, students discovered the value of fixing things and how it supports a more sustainable world.

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Megan Stasi and Debbie Hoffman, Fix It Carts – Bringing a Culture of Repair into Primary Schools

Megan and Debbie recount how their experience with the local Repair Café led them to establish a Repair Club, then to develop Fix It Carts to cultivate a repair mindset in their K - 8 schools.

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Featured Resources!

Whether you’re looking for quick, low-cost DIY repair kits, or have a team of volunteers ready to invest in building your classroom a more comprehensive set-up, these examples show the range of possibilities for repair kits and carts. 

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Teaching Lamp Repair Kit

A kit for teaching about lamp repair. Especially valuable for classrooms, easy to use, relatively inexpensive, includes two teaching slide decks. See Kimberley’s Note for inspiration!

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Team Repair

Team Repair provides hands-on learning kits tied to science, tech, and sustainability education – great for both classrooms and home.

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Berkeley Unified School District’s STEM / Maker Class Repair Unit *EXPANDED*

NEW curriculum, lesson plans, and slides for teaching a one-week repair unit in a middle school STEM/Maker class. See Ellen’s Note for its role in BUSD‘s climate literacy initiative.

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Fix Forward and Fix It Carts

Lesson plans and activity guides for K - 8: cart building plans and supply lists. Each cart is stocked with age-appropriate tools and materials.

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Have you used the Educator Resource Library?

Let us know! Your feedback helps us grow and shape the tools we share.
We invite you to suggest additions to the Library or to Notes from the Field.

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Makerspace Educators!

We’re developing a new resource, an argument and pathway for maker-educators to bring repair into their classrooms. It will continue to be developed as we work with and hear from maker educators. Take a look at Re-Thinking Repair in Maker Education Programs to see how you might bring repair into your makerspace, and get in touch if you’d like to help develop and share-out this resource.

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Save the date!

International Repair Day

Every October repair advocates around the world celebrate the power of repair to bring communities together, reduce our impact on the planet, teach new skills, and so much more. Whether you’re a fixer, community organiser, tinkerer, maker, repair business, campaigner or simply a fan of repair, there are lots of ways to join in. 

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💻 E-Waste and Secondary School Programs

July 2025

In this newsletter... 

The month's theme is e-waste and secondary school programs.

• Presenting three “Notes from the Field” – centering educators going after e-waste 

• Featuring new Library resources

• Announcing repair events around the globe

Elizabeth Chamberlain, Director of Sustainability of iFixit, and an Oakland Tech Repair Student, Right to Repair Independence Day, 2024. Image credit: Ben Lohrentz

💻 E-Waste and Secondary School Programs

A few standout school programs are going after e-waste through hands-on repair education. These initiatives equip students with life-long skills, provide communities with lower-cost access to technology, ease the burden on school IT departments, and save schools money. 

When we empower students to fix what’s broken, we’re not just teaching practical skills, we’re nurturing agency, critical thinking, and the ability to see beyond what may seemingly be “broken”.

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Last month, we introduced Notes from the Field, a series of essays from educators and repair advocates who put repair at the heart of their teaching and organizing.

These accounts offer insights into teaching repair in real-world contexts – from classrooms and makerspaces to libraries, community centers, and other educational settings. 

This month we hear from repair educators and advocates about how teaching hands-on tech repair is a key strategy to reduce e-waste in schools and communities.

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Samuel Berg: District-wide Chromebook Repair 

Sam relates how Oakland Unified School District student interns have repaired some 10,000 Chromebooks over the last five years. They’ve learned technical skills, earned industry certification, gained workplace skills, and saved the school district $2.4 million along the way.

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Julie York: Riot Refurb

Julie describes the origins and growth of the terrific Riot Refurb program. High school students refurbish and repair scavenged obsolete and broken devices — addressing e-waste, technology equity, technical and workplace training, and more.

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iFixit EDU

The iFixit Education Team reminds us that teaching our youth about repair is a critical strategy for advancing repair. iFixit leverages its considerable resources to support K-12 educators and runs a robust Technical Writing Program for university students.

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Featured Resources!

The Educator Resource Library contains a couple dozen other resources for teaching about e-waste. Head over to the Library, filter on “e-waste”. 

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Culture of Repair helped Riot Refurb secure funding for this project.

Riot Refurb 2.0
Riot Refurb’s 2.0 is a much-expanded version of their 2024 guidebook covering how to set up an after-school program to teach students computer repair. 

In addition to instructional support, the guide addresses contextual issues such as e-waste, parts procurement, managing equipment and tools, inclusion, community outreach, and the ethics of repair.

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iFixit Educator Resources 
This resource contains links to materials prepared by iFixit and other repair organizations around the world. It offers an excellent orientation to the principal dimensions of repair and its role in blunting the human and environmental crises caused by over-consumption. Also check out iFixit’s “Why we do what we do”.

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iFixit K-12 Educator Tool Chest 
The K-12 Educator Tool Chest contains a variety of repair-centered lessons and activities. It includes projects, core concepts, lesson plans, standards correlations, etc, making it easy for educators to integrate repair into their curriculum.

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Have you used the Educator Resource Library?

Let us know! Your feedback helps us grow and shape the tools we share.

We invite you to suggest additions to the Library or to Notes from the Field. Alternatively, if you need funding to support developing your own resource, check out the Grants page.

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International Repair Coverage!

Image source: Xavier Lalanne-Tauzia for NYT Wirecutter

In June 2025 The New York Times Wirecutter product recommendation service explored appliance durability and repairability. On their website and podcast they reported on why appliances are less repairable and less durable than they used to be, and offered recommendations for purchasing, repairing, and maintaining appliances.

A useful read for repair advocates, particularly regarding the impact of environmental regulation on repairability.

They conclude the article with advice for consumers — suggestions on how to buy, and “Seven Ways to Make Your Appliance Last”. Including our favorite #6:

 “Consider making some repairs yourself.”

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Save the date!

International Repair Day

International Repair Day is an annual global event for everyone who makes repair happen in their communities around the world.

Every October we celebrate the power of repair to bring our communities together, reduce our impact on the planet, teach new skills and so much more. Whether you’re a fixer, community organiser, tinkerer, maker, repair business, campaigner or simply a fan of repair, there are lots of ways to join in.

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Fix Fest 2025

We’re excited to share Restart Project’s recent announcement:

FixFest 2025 will be held in London, UK, September 4-7.

It's always a brilliant gathering of repair advocates from around the world. 

See you there!

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🌎 Repair ~ Environment ~ Education

June 2025

In this newsletter…

• This month's theme is Repair, the Environment and Education.

• Introducing “Notes from the Field”, a rich new resource to complement the Educator Resource Library. 

• Announcing two grants, new resources in the Educator Resource Library, and more!

Mending the Earth

Image Source: "A Stitch in Time", written by Himadri Das and Veena Prasad. Illustration by Ankitha Kini © Pratham Books. (full credit)

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Repair ~ Environment ~ Education

“The greenest phone is the one already in your pocket.”

We know this, and we know why.

It's not new news that repair reduces the devastation consumerism wrecks on the Earth. Waste authorities have supported repair initiatives for years. From ReLondon supporting London Repairs and the Restart Project, to Stopwaste supporting Fixit Clinics in the San Francisco Bay Area, to Sustainability Victoria, Australia supporting regional Repair Cafés, to umpteen other examples around the world.

What IS new news is that another public authority is increasingly engaging with repair.

School districts are incorporating repair into their Climate Literacy programs, positioning repair as a core component of environmental education.  

Repair is a powerful teaching tool, and a pillar of environmental care. Integrating repair into education is a no-brainer.

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We’re excited to introduce “Notes from the Field”, a new series of posts from educators and repair advocates who are putting repair at the heart of their teaching and organizing.

These accounts offer insights into what it looks like to teach repair in real-world contexts – from classrooms and makerspaces, to libraries, community centers, and beyond. We invite you to dive in, get inspired, and share your thoughts.

This month we will hear from three California, USA educators about how teaching about repair is a key strategy for implementing their visions of educating students about the environment.

Gloria Harwood, Laguna Beach Unified School District's Coordinator of Environmental Literacy 

Gloria writes about hosting Fix It Fests during STEAM class, integrating repair with environmental issues through research, instructional, and hands-on learning, supported by community volunteers.

Ellen McClure, Berkeley Unified School District's Climate Literacy Coordinator 

Ellen writes about a two-part program integrating repair into the middle-school STEM / Makerspace curriculum and hosting community repair events. 

Emily Wanous, Engagement Director for Algalita Marine Research and Education

Algalita’s mission is to eliminate plastic pollution through education and research. Emily writes about how the organization has integrated repair into their in-class and afterschool programming.

Go to “Notes from the Field” to learn about why and how these educators are introducing repair into their respective programs. 

Each month going forward you'll hear from other people doing fantastic work with repair in educational settings. Check back regularly to learn about their visions, strategies and tactics. It's super informative and inspiring.

Know someone who’s championing repair education in your community?
We’re actively seeking contributors, including community repair advocates, whose work centers integrating repair into educational programs and core curricula, and into climate action through teaching repair to our youth.

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New Grants!

The first is to Berkeley Unified School District’s Climate Literacy Initiative and Middle School Makerspace Program. The grant will support extending last year’s 7th grade program to 8th grade classes, hosting community repair events, and publishing teaching resources. Learn more in Ellen McClure’s Note.

The second supports Algalita Marine Research and Education. The organization will bring repair into schools and publish teaching resources in the 2025/2026 academic year. This initiative includes understanding repair within social and economic contexts, hands-on learning, and students reflecting on the implications of their actions on the environment. Learn more in Emily Wanous’s Note.

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New Resources!

"A Stitch In Time"

Volunteers from Repair Café Collective India and Repair Café Bangalore Foundation created and illustrated this storybook for 9 - 11 year-old children, focused on the values of repair and reuse.

“A Stitch In Time”, published and made freely available by Pratham Books, is an excellent example of how repair can be integrated into core curriculum.

"Mend Don’t Spend" Teen Mending Workshop

Rediscover Center designed this teen-focused mending and clothing mods workshop for use by libraries, schools, community centers and similar organizations. The workshop draws on young people’s love of fashion, creativity, and self-expression to get them excited about sewing and mending, and engaged with sustainability. “Mend Don’t Spend”

The Culture of Repair supported securing funding for this project.

Illustration by Ankitha Kini © Pratham Books. (Full credit)

Have you used the Repair Educator Resource Library?

Let us know! Your stories and feedback help us grow and shape the tools we share.

We invite you to let us know about candidate additions to the Library. Alternatively, if you need funding to support developing your own resource, check out the Grants page.

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Save the date!

We’re excited to share the Restart Project’s recent announcement:

FixFest 2025 will be held in London, UK, September 4-7!

It's always a brilliant gathering of repair advocates from around the world. 

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Join the mailing list here

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Repair Is a Powerful Teaching Tool

May 2025

Graphic designed by Hunter Irvin 

Repair Is a Powerful Teaching Tool!

Repair offers opportunities for students to approach what's broken, dig into and understand what it’s made of and how it works, find a point and mode of intervention, and put it into working order. Repair becomes an experiential model for addressing what's not working, regardless of scale.

When we fix something, repairing becomes a metaphor for everything we hope education can be: relevant, rooted, rigorous, and restorative. 

Repair offers a wide range of thinking skills and requires learning subject content central to the goals of education: 

Critical Thinking skills
Problem-solving, design thinking, reflection, systems thinking
Hands-on Skills
Tool use, technical literacy, design and engineering practices, applied learning, restorative practices

Across subjects
Interdisciplinary learning, STEAM,
ecology, civics, physics

Personal development
Social Emotional Learning (SEL), resilience, adaptability, civic responsibility, agency

Images from Berkeley High School Climate Day, California, April 2025

Visit our Education Program Overview page to consider more deeply the educational possibilities inherent in repair.

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A More Robust Educator Resource Library!

We're excited to announce that the Culture of Repair Educator Resource Library has been overhauled and expanded to provide even more (mostly) free tools for teaching about repair in primary and secondary educational settings.

Expanded and Searchable

We’ve made the Library easier to navigate with a new filtering tool to let you search by content topic and by type of resource.  

And we’ve added not only more curriculum and lesson plans, but also a broader range of resources – like videos, visual aids, worksheets, and online interactive activities.

Most resources are free and open access, and everything is designed to be flexible across learning environments. We invite you to reach out to let us know if there is something we should add to the library. Or, if you want to create sharable resources and need funding, check out our Grants Program.

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Featured Resource

Ten one-hour lesson plans link multiple subject areas to the concept of repair in this downloadable education pack. Designed to align with the English Primary National Curriculum, the resource encourages practical, hands-on learning, making it a versatile resource that can be adapted for use anywhere.

Lesson plans are augmented with supplementary resources and illustrations of how to associate lessons with other school initiatives (e.g., hosting a community repair event, a climate action or robotics club, etc.).

Lesson plans developed by Malvern Hills Repair Cafe.

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Have you used the Repair Educator Resource Library?

Let us know! Your stories and feedback help us grow and shape the tools we share. 

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Join the mailing list here

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Check out our previous newsletters