♪♪
Martin: I’ve always been really curious to know how
people think, how the mind works,
how we figure things out...
Narr: Lee Martin's always been curious about how
people learn - and invent -- new things.
It's a curiosity born of spending countless weekends
in his grandfather's basement workshop...
making stuff.
Martin: It was just this space of possibility.
You'd go in there and you'd think you could kind of
do anything.
Narr: Every week, this professor from the UC Davis
School of Education
sets out to provide a "space of possibility"
for other young people.
Loading this specially outfitted van with tools
and materials to make...stuff.
Lee calls it...the BETA Lab.
(Van door closes)
(van pulls away)
Narr: At some destinations, like a Boys or Girls Club...
young people may use the van itself as a workshop
and mobile laboratory.
Today, at Sacramento's Met High School,
Lee and these ninth through twelfth graders are bringing
power tools, a 3-D printer, even a laser cutter into
teacher Christopher Chu's chemistry class.
They're all members of the "Makers Club" -- a growing
movement that encourages kids to design and build
projects for both playful and useful ends.
Martin: One of the things I love about the maker stuff
is that it's a place where learning new ideas,
it's really clear how it's going to enable you
to do new things.
Emily: It's really just anyone who enjoys inventing
and kind of tinkering and just working with their
hands to create something.
Narr: Raul, a senior, is perfecting his remote
control car design.
Raul: So this year the goal was just to make it,
make it better, and it's a lot better.
Chu: One of the things I think that makes them really
special, especially this group,
is they like to take risks. They like to try new things
and they're not afraid to make mistakes.
Ava: There's just this feeling of success
when you do something on your own.
You make something and then you can look back at it in
the future and say, 'I did that.
Martin: It's about this session and then next week . . .
Narr: In graduate school, Lee became fascinated with
how people cultivate "adaptive expertise" -
the ability to learn new things and work through
unexpected challenges.
As an avid "maker" himself, he wondered if building and
transporting a "workshop on wheels" to underserved
communities would help spark curiosity and creativity in
young people...
enhancing traditional types of "STEM" education
Martin: There are a lot of signals to young women and
young people of color that say engineering,
design are not spaces that are necessarily for you
and that's deeply problematic.
So by creating a space where they feel that they do fit in.
By creating a space where they can be successful and
with something really tangible that they can walk
out and say "I made this' that at least has the
potential to really show them that there are spaces
that they fit in, belong, and that their ideas
are valued.
Narr: Met High School principal Denise Lambert
says the BETA Lab also lets her students experience a
collegiate-type classroom environment with a real
UC Davis professor.
Lambert: The resources that are provided through the
program are awesome....
I don't think these students would have that opportunity,
so it opens another door for them.
Pedro: Lee is an amazing person.
I don't see him more as a professor,
I see him more as a friend because he's just helping,
not just me, but the other students step by step.
Emily: It's amazing. He's a wonderful resource.
He's a kind person and he's really there to help teach
you and walk you through.
Chu: Not only does he bring like a lot of resources and
supplies, he brings resources in terms
of people.
Like, it's relationships, it's mentorship,
it's knowledge that he's able to give to the kids.
Narr: Lee admits it's still too early to measure
the success of the BETA Lab in a quantifiable,
data-driven way.
Results so far are only anecdotal - and individual.
But he and others are encouraged.
Martin: There are all these great ideas out there...
that, I think, can be so joyful and exciting for
thinking about having these tools to make sense of the
world, to make it more meaningful and then to
create, to move the world towards what you
want it to be.
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