Makerspace has been lauded as a new way forward to create communities, empower students and bring together enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels “to tinker” and create. Makerspace education has been touted as having the potential to empower young people to become agents of change in their communities. This paper examines how a Makerspace approach can capture the imagination and creativity of female primary school students, and engage them in integrated STEM-based projects. The study scaffolded female tertiary undergraduate students to mentor small groups of girls to complete a project in a STEM Makerspace situated in classrooms. The data generated and analysed from this study were used to determine how Makerspace STEM-based projects were enacted, how they engaged and supported the girls’ learning, and considers the future of a Makerspace approach as a way to progress integrated STEM education.

The internationalFIRST® LEGO® League (FLL): Challengeis a popular educational robotics and STEM competition designed to promote primary and early high school students’ STEM interests and careers, and twenty-first century skill development. TheFLL Challengecurrently involves over 318,000 students (aged 9–16 years) in approximately 110 countries. In this paper, we present a semi-systematic historical review of the research literature focussed on the competition’s impact on school students’ STEM attitudes, learning, and twenty-first century skill development. Through our review process, we found a total of 26 publications between 2004 and 2022 which met our inclusion criteria, and identified the emergence and development of three significant historical research themes: (1) impacts on students’ motivation, STEM learning, and attitudes, (2) development of twenty-first century skills, and (3) coaching/pedagogical strategies to support student learning and skill development. The first theme was further refined through three subcategories focussed on impacts on female participants, ethnic minority groups, and students with special needs. International research findings regarding the impacts ofFLL Challengeparticipation on students’ motivation, STEM attitudes, and learning were positive for all student groups, especially female participants, but not always statistically significant. Findings regarding positive short-term impacts on twenty-first century skill development were broadly consistent, but long-term impact findings were inconclusive. The influence of coaches’ skills and pedagogical expertise upon students’ learning and skill development in theFLL Challengeis a potentially underrepresented area of research.

Teacher education is in the grip of change. Due to the new Australian Curriculum, no longer is it possible to plan and implement lessons without considering the inclusion of Information and Communication Technologies. Simply knowing about the latest technology gadgets is not enough. Information literacy is essential in today’s information-rich learning and working environment. Students and teachers must be able to engage with diverse learning technologies efficiently and effectively in the search for the “right information” at the “right time” for the “right purpose”. Key information literacy and inquiry skills have been recognised as vital learning goals by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority and the International Society for Technology in Education and are thus critical in science teacher education. This paper examines the overlap of technology, pedagogy and science content in the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and its affordances for science educators, at the intersection between technology knowledge, science pedagogy (information literacy and inquiry) and science content knowledge. Following an introduction of the TPACK framework for science education, the paper reports the research findings, which illustrate that 90% of pre-service teachers thought the experimental unit improved their understanding of the inquiry process, 88% reported more confidence in their understanding of science concepts and 94% of students reported an increase in their knowledge and confidence of Web 2.0 tools in supporting scientific inquiry in science. The implications of this study are that the online inquiry improved students’ knowledge and confidence in the skills and processes associated with inquiry and in science concepts.

In recent years Makerspace has developed within both online (Hackerspaces) and physical ‘spaces’ (Makerspaces) and provides students with opportunities for more open-ended learning experiences where they can ‘make’ and create. In open making teacher cannot control or direct the learning and with a crowded curriculum of facts and knowledge there is little time for open-ended making in schools. In India there is a strong focus on more traditional ways of teaching and learning including a transmissive approach of instruction from teacher to student. This paper posits that using a ‘directed’ or scaffolded Makerspace Approach to create a carefully defined product enables teachers or facilitators to bridge the gap between highly structured and open-ended pedagogical approaches to embed measurable STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) knowledge and 21st century competencies into their program.. The paper examines how a Makerspace impacts on the learning and engagement of primary school students in India and explores the creating of several artefacts including: Wigglebots, Catapults, and Pipelines. The collected data demonstrated primary students’ engagement in, and enjoyment of, the Makerspace program. This paper develops and trials a STEM theoretical framework which resulted from the comparison of several existing frameworks to incorporate content knowledge and 21st century skills.