Over the years, I have participated in TREC in a lot of different ways: various committees, the Associate Leadership Council, the Political Action Committee, and more. My mainstay for the better part of a decade, however, has remained with the professional services committee. It gives me the chance to use the skills I hone every day to give back to the community.
I recently worked on the Maker Space Lab at Uplift Heights Preparatory in West Dallas. Uplift Education is a free public charter school system helping students reach their potential regardless of ethnic or socioeconomic background. The Maker Space Lab’s purpose is to provide an interactive learning environment to teach physics and facilitate extracurricular engineering and robotics projects.
This was one of those especially great projects for me because it started at the research and development (R&D) committee level. During the R&D process, small groups of TREC volunteers meet potential grant recipients to discuss their project. Those teams report to the grants committee, who makes recommendations for funding to TREC Foundation’s board.
With a grant of $30,000 from TREC Foundation and TREC members’ time, the Maker Space Lab is now in use and holds classes daily. As a project manager on the Maker Space Lab, I worked with some great members. On the design side, Hoshi Brooks with Perkins + Will put together an effective layout for the space. However, we are still not done. We have several components of an outdoor learning space on order, which includes a decomposed granite base, a shade structure, electricity and other amenities to make learning outside in Texas actually enjoyable.
I’m looking forward to continuing our work. What’s impressed me the most about Uplift is how effective their hands-on curriculum is. With an already amazing graduation rate, they keep exploring new ways to bolster interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). As someone “diagnosed” as a Kinesthetic learner (otherwise known at my magnet school in Decatur, Illinois as a “lost cause”), I appreciate the intractability and practical application of what Uplift scholars (Uplift refers to their kids as scholars on their way to college) learn about their own lives: how the circuits work in their homes, what forces are at work with moving vehicles, and, of course, how to build an effective catapult.
Seriously though, playing a small role in taking the lame statement of “learning is fun” to actually making learning fun has been extremely rewarding. Hear for yourself what the kids had to say:
https://vimeo.com/166841436
We are recruiting TREC members as guest speakers, introducing scholars to real live people who work daily in the areas they are studying. Allison Beck with the Beck Group has been instrumental in reaching out to our membership (and, as a cheap plug: if you’re interested, please contact me).
As a 20-year industry veteran and founder of Greenlight, Tyler has worked in the roles of architect, broker, owner’s representative, general contractor, and development manager. He is a graduate from the University of North Texas and in licensed as an architect (TX) and real estate broker (TX).
Making a Maker Space Lab
