Foregrounding backstage activities for engaging children in a FabLab for STEM education

Abstract

Abstract To tackle the worldwide shortage of graduates with a STEM diploma, governments are allocating funds to STEM education. This article focuses on the potential of FabLabs in relation to STEM education for non-expert users; more specifically, children of 6–16 years old. We describe two case studies – ‘Wa Make?’ and ‘Making Things!’ – that are part of a long-term process of engaging local non-expert users in FabLab Genk. Although the goal of the two cases was the same (i.e. getting children acquainted with a FabLab), their setups differed completely. By comparing the two cases, we address the importance of backstage activities for engaging non-expert users in STEM-related activities in FabLabs and report on the different front- and backstage activities that we undertook in both case studies. We discuss how focusing on these backstage activities resulted in us moving away from the ‘30-minute workshop model’ to engage non-expert users in FabLab Genk in the long-term. We also report on how it urged us to thoroughly reflect upon the roles that adults (i.e. the researchers, youth workers, teachers, etc.) take on in STEM-related activities in FabLab. With our article we aim to provide handlebars for engaging children in a FabLab for STEM educational purposes, through foregrounding backstage activities. By doing so, this paper advocates to consider FabLabs as more than merely technical infrastructures and to foreground the importance of backstage activities in processes to engage non-expert users in STEM education.