Presentation of the
Teens4Kids Project
FabLab Western Sicily is a non-profit organization created to bring positive change in one of the least developed regions of Europe: Sicily. FabLab WS offers creative learning laboratories to empower students to take an active role in the digital transformation.
- How do we do this? -
We have created several spaces in Sicily where students can enjoy open access to technological tools such 3D printing and other digital manufacturing tools. Leveraging these tools, we offer creative extracurricular activities of different kinds, from hackathons to projects aimed at responding to local challenges.
By doing so, the FabLab promotes the development of digital and entrepreneurial skills. In addition, it provides the right environment to develop other crucial skills for students to thrive in the digital era, such as creativity, problem-solving, adaptability and self-learning.
Despite our limited resources, FabLab WS has reached thousands of students with hands-on activities.For now, these spaces are all within schools but we aim to bring them outside schools so that anyone can access them and learn by themselves through self-learning manuals or receive training and support on how to use the tools to bring their ideas into life. In addition, the FabLab goes also to schools to reach more directly students of all ages and backgrounds. We aim to continue expanding our activities and outreach so that more students in Sicily can get access to digital education and develop new skills.
- Impact -
The past nine years of activities with the Fablab WS have made clear to us that this model is very effective at bringing students closer to STEM disciplines, mostly by showing to them that studying STEM is within their reach. We also noticed how these activities supported the development of non-cognitive skills, which are extremely important in the digital era.
Yet, anectodal evidence might not be enough to promote a change in policy-making. This is why I have run a randomised controlled trial, thanks to the support of Fondazione Edulife, to measure the causal effect of FabLab activities on two important non-cognitive skills: creativity and grit. The results of this study are very encouraging as we find a statistically significant effect for both these variables. Together with several researchers, we published a working paper estimating the impact of FabLab activities. In addition, I wrote a short book summarising some best practices for implementing creative learning activities in schools. I hope to be able to run more experiments like this in the future and create more evidence to support policy-making.
