Grants in Action: Power Tools in the Library?

Sometimes the best learning starts with a bin of cardboard and a pair of loud scissors.

The library isn’t usually where you expect to hear power tools. At Kingston Middle School, it is now.

Thanks to a North Kitsap Schools Foundation grant, Kingston Middle School librarian Lynn Atherton grew some small cardboard building challenges into something many more students can be part of.

Before the grant, the makerspace ran on a single bin of supplies. That meant taking turns, waiting, and sometimes not getting a chance at all before lunch ended. Now there are five bins, each one stocked and ready, and each one comes with a pair of electric scissors.

That change made a bigger difference than it sounds like it would. Students don’t have to wait for their turn anymore. More of them build at the same time, and they get more done before the bell. With a larger supply of fasteners, students no longer have to take a creation apart to free up materials for the next person. Projects can grow over several days and stay on display in the library for everyone to see.

The electric scissors did something nobody planned for. Once students realized they could use “power tools” in the library, kids who had never tried the cardboard challenges wanted in. The scissors also let students cut curves more easily, which led to creations with finer detail.

Then came a moment with a powerful message.

A group of boys who hadn’t joined in before the new tools arrived started showing up. At first, they were just having fun, cutting up cardboard and making random things, spelling out their names, building faces. One day, while they were making miniatures of their favorite sporting equipment, they realized they could use those creations to support their History Day research displays about those same sports. Nobody told them to. They made the connection on their own and followed through.

That is what a makerspace is for. A place to tinker becomes a place to think.

Fifty students use the makerspace regularly right now, and it’s open to all 460-plus students at Kingston Middle. Most of the regulars still come from the robotics program, but that’s starting to change, with more students taking part and more finished creations than before. Every storage bin lets students know the North Kitsap Schools Foundation made it possible.

The program is still developing, and Lynn is the first to say so. But she’s already seeing progress, and so are we.

This is Grants in Action: giving more students the time, tools, and space to build something of their own.