Dedham Library Innovation Team Announces Grants Totaling $5,500 to Dedham Public and School Libraries

DEDHAM, MA - The Dedham Library Innovation Team (DLIT), the award-winning non-profit dedicated to the advocacy of Dedham’s public and school libraries, has announced grant awards totaling $3,600 to the Dedham Public Schools and $1,900 to the Dedham Public Library, to help expand the hugely popular Makerspace labs in the schools and in the two branches of the public library. A Makerspace is a do-it-yourself space where people create, invent and learn through hands-on materials.

The DLIT grant awards for Dedham’s schools will allow them to expand their makerspaces and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) programming, and include educational manipulatives that allow students to participate in hands-on problem-solving and spatial skill development, while collaborating with each other. The items being funded with this year’s grant range from literacy games, media-editing tools, and a collection of STEM-related books to inspire and encourage students in the elementary schools; to materials and supplies for the middle and high schools to support exploration of technical and creative skills like photography, robotics, electronics, movie-making, paper-crafting and textile arts. While all activities are developmentally appropriate for all grades served, some specific resources were selected to interest girls, a population underrepresented in STEM careers.

“This grant continues to accelerate the increasing number of innovative learning opportunities we are offering Dedham’s students through our rapidly evolving library media centers,” Dr. Don Langenhorst, Dedham Public School’s Technology Director explains. He adds, “Technology-enabled school libraries are fast-becoming catalysts for critical 21st century skills, and these exciting new makerspaces will help to better prepare students for career options in science, technology, engineering and math.”

In addition to the grant awards for the school libraries, DLIT has provided the Dedham Public Library with $1,900 to help fund several innovative purchases and activities to increase its STEM offerings as well. Library Director Bonnie Roalsen will soon be installing a Flight Lab wind tunnel in the main library children’s room, through which flight, air current, air resistance and gravity are explored through play and hands-on investigation. In addition, several sets of Snap Circuit electronic kits are being added to both libraries’ circulation collections, for children to explore and build electronic projects with safe, easy to use circuitry sets. Roalsen is thrilled to add both the wind tunnel and the electronics kits to the public libraries. She observes, “It is a wonderful step forward in our overall process of modernizing our libraries and providing more immersive and hands-on learning experiences at our facilities.”

“DLIT’s primary mission is to advocate for the long-term needs of Dedham’s public and school libraries as these critical institutions navigate the demands of the 21st century,” DLIT President Kristen Overman notes. “But we also recognize that there are urgent innovations required today to help keep our libraries up to date with the rapid changes in digital learning and information solutions, so we are happy to be able to provide these grants.”

This winter, DLIT is overseeing its annual Dedham Reads Together town-wide reading program, and is encouraging all citizens to read William Kamkwamba’s book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the true story of how a library book and STEM learning came together to change one young man’s life and those around him. Several coordinating activities will be held over the next two months at the schools and in the public libraries as part of the program, and a finale gala for adults will be held at the Dedham Public Library on Friday evening, April 7, 2017. Needham Bank has once again championed the Dedham Reads Together initiative with their generous sponsorship.

A registered 501 c3 non-profit organization, The Dedham Library Innovation Team is an open and welcoming community group of those who understand the increasingly critical value of today’s modern library. To that end, the group is committed to creating collaborative, positive partnerships between the libraries, schools, public officials, businesses, and residents in order to support the strategic vision and development of a best-in-class, vibrant public library system in Dedham, MA. For more information, visit www.dlitdedham.com or check out the group’s Facebook page.