Making Opportunity

Hi everyone! My name is Heather Lister and I am so excited to join the Foundry this year as a Senior Maker Fellow. My maker journey began about 4 years ago. I had just accepted a new position as the school librarian at Hershey Middle School and I had been reading a lot about libraries that were adding these things called “makerspaces”. After learning a bit more and talking with some other librarians, I decided that we were going to try it at Hershey. And as they say, the rest is history. In actuality there were a lot of ups and downs, trials and errors, but it gave me the passion to begin championing this type of learning beyond the Derry Township School District. For the last two years I have been blessed to have served as the Director of Maker Education and a Professional Learning Specialist with Mackin Educational Resources. This position provided me the opportunity to work with teachers around the world in planning and implementing maker education programs in their schools. I’m a Central PA native and while I have worked in three very distinct school districts, there was still so much to learn from the schools I was visiting. Yet despite each of their unique qualities, they all had a shared goal of providing quality learning opportunities for kids. Personally, I believe making is an answer to some societal issues (but we’ll save that for another blog post). I’m excited to join the Foundry as the Fellow for both Marshall Math and Science Academy and Camp Curtin Academy. In addition to working with these two schools, I will be supporting the Science pathway across all schools.

A project I am especially excited about is one we are doing at Marshall Math and Science Academy. In the absence of a school library, we are going to attempt to transform the common areas throughout the school into min-libraries. This project is near and dear to my heart being a former school librarian. We are also planning on using this as an opportunity for students to share their own writing.

So that’s the “official” who I am, but I thought I’d give you a little more random (but very important) facts about me.

Favorite TV Show: Golden Girls

Harry Potter House: Slytherin (I love Snape)

Children: Yes (a 5 year old son and a 3 year old daughter)

Currently residing in: Hummelstown

Hometown: Mechanicsburg

Favorite Sport: Soccer

Favorite Subject in School: The reason why I’m a librarian is because I didn’t have a favorite subject - I love them all!

Early Bird or Night Owl: Neither. I go to bed early and I sleep in late. (or as late as possible with a two kids)

Siblings: 5 (4 sisters and a brother) I’m the oldest!

There really isn’t an aspect of making that I don’t enjoy. I love 3D printing (have one at my house) and I love building things with microcontrollers. I’m trying to learn Python. I’m also a huge fan of low-tech making. I would argue that we often need to be more creative thinkers when constructing something with cardboard than some other products that have tutorials with lots of images showing you exactly how to build something. There are no rules with cardboard and duct tape.

Go make!