Neighborhood earth
Neighborhood Earth represents our outreach efforts and community activism all around the world. It’s our longest running program, existing before SteamHead. In 2011 James entered China as a manufacturing engineer, found that locals highly valued education, and started free classes for factory workers. Since then, James and Carrie have held free classes in Brazil, Germany, Canada, China, the U.K., and the U.S.
Over the Years
A few examples of areas we held free classes for under-served students
Sao Paulo
CampusParty was started to bring computer people together before high speed internet. Huge LAN conventions! We gave free teacher workshops at the Brazillian event.
Leipzig
Chaos Computer Congress is Europe’s biggest hacker gathering, and SteamHead created an area for educators to bring hacking into their classrooms.
Columbia Valley
In a beautiful but remote Canadian valley we had a MakeFashion Edu session and brought electronics to the kids and parents of the area.
Fuzhou
Before the SteamHead name, James was donating computers to local school students and teaching free English classes inside Chinese factories.
Pioneertown
We brought Chinese students and electronics donations to the Boys and Girls club near our Californian desert space to the students of Yucca Valley.
OUTREACH Programs
Outreach at Factories in China
While working as an engineer in Chinese factories, James began donating time and equipment to the local communities. To help factory workers enter advanced STEM careers, James created volunteer, after-work, Engineering English classes. These were for factory employees in the locations wherever he had engineering projects.
Some of the staff had questions for James about the middle school aged children using computers the internet. These questions turned into James donating equipment, repairing laptops, and discussing parenting strategies concerning technology and rapid change.
It was during these experiences that James found a love of free knowledge exchange internationally.
Outreach at Dongwan School
The school of Dongwan exists to allow the children of migrant workers, who are not allowed to attend public schools outside of their registered cities, to travel and live with their parents during contracts, which can often last for several years.
SteamHead began volunteering here when Linda, a Shekou SteamHead member, introduced us to the school. The program grew into several years of semester long classes, multiple equipment donations, and multiple events. National Geographic, China Daily, PRD Magazine, and hosts of international hackers all visited and shared in this program.
Other Programs
Boys and Girls Club
SteamHead conducts numerous small-scale volunteer sessions, including an annual trip to a Boys and Girls Club in a small California desert town. SteamHead gathers donations from elelectronics education companies and hosts training and hacking sessions for the students at the club.
Maker Ed Booths at Events
SteamHead hosts booths at education events worldwide. At the hacker event, Chaos Computer Congress, in Leiptzeg, Germany, SteamHead hosted a event using recycled materials to create electronics kits for local schools. We also attended and made donations to many other events including Campus Party in Sao Paulo, Deeper Learning in California.
STEAMHEAD R.ED
The SteamHead Resident Educator Program embeds Maker Education and international cultural exchanges into local educational programs. We donate time and space in order to help educators and students get together. SteamHead Resident Educators are part of our community. We invite innovative people from out of town and country to be a guest inside our makerspace, in our Resident Room.
Spotlight: Helen Leigh Steer
In March 2017 makers from Shenzhen and the UK took part in Hello Shenzhen, a three week immersive residency program. Co-developed between makers and the host organizations, the project aimed to build stronger links between UK and Chinese making practices and covered a variety of themes, including many UN SDGs. SteamHead enjoyed the focuses on maker education, community development, and repair culture.
We met Helen during this visit, and she was our second SteamHead Resident. Helen set great standards for school workshops, educational development, and forming lasting connections with the Shenzhen community as well as businesses.
Helen later returned to SteamHead for additional residencies, and continues to contribute the community to this day.
Spotlight: Oliver Child
Oliver committed a full month to his SteamHead residency in August 2018. He created a 2 meter wall drawing machine, coached primary school students in 3D modeling, developed a MakeFashion Edu flashy badge template, 3D modeled and repaired our projector screen holders, and participated in several community building initiatives.
Oliver commented, “I’ve been a maker for longer than I knew what a maker was, and I have made several things you can find scattered over the internet. One of my biggest achievements is writing this article for Chalkdust Magazine about machine learning and matchboxes.”
SteamHead particularly appreciates our younger Resident Educators. They bring with them the newest and best empathy for the K-12 school students we focus on.