Repair at King Middle School!
Berkeley Unified School District
Is in the Vanguard!
Community Repair Events Open to All
+
Classroom Instruction
Berkeley Unified School District is creating a model approach for schools: grounding repair in climate literacy, integrating repair into instructional curricula, and enriching school - community relations.
The Fix-it Fests are just one component of a collaboration between the BUSD Climate Literacy Initiative and the Middle School Makerspace Program. Complementing the community repair events, middle school students are taught week-long repair units in their STEM-focused Makerspaces.
Through hands-on experience repairing items, including their own, this project will educate students and families on repair's role in environmental sustainability, and will cultivate a sense of capacity to take care of our material world.
The in-class work will culminate in a Fix-it Fest at each middle school in the 2024/2025 school year. (Longfellow's is on February 8th.)
Students will be taught strategies for approaching broken objects, problem-solving and technical skills for repairing them, and the environmental impact of lengthening the useful life of what we already have.
The program is being refined as it cycles through each of the three middle schools. BUSD will ultimately have a great curriculum to offer through the CRP catalogue of educator resources. (See following.)
Hey Educators!
Want to take repair into the classroom?
Or start an after-school program?
Free resources to help you get out the gate!
The Culture of Repair Project collects and collates links to educational resources from around the world. Materials range from fully-developed programs to resources designed to support teaching about repair, such as toolkits, lesson plans, videos, maps, schematics, and more.
The last Newsletter featured FOUR newly published resources.
Check them out!
Please suggest additions!
FEATURED RESOURCE!
The Restart Project offers materials to organize a high school after-school enrichment program that culminates in a community repair event.
Students develop technical and problem-solving skills, and learn about the extraction > production > consumption > discard economy and its implications for the environment and society. The program focuses on electronics.
Resources include lesson plans and supplementary materials to organize and teach 10 one-hour sessions.
Call on the help of your local repair volunteers from Restart Parties, Repair Cafés, Fixit Clinics, or ever so many other initiatives -- they'll be thrilled to work with you. Promise.
Finally: I'm just me.
The impact of The Culture of Repair Project could be vastly expanded with help.
In Cyberspace!
Visit Get Involved to see how you might lend a hand.
Let me hear about other exciting repair programs, resources and plans so I can spread the word. We are most powerful in community.
If it's broke, FIX IT!
Vita