By Rob Hayes
Tufts CEEO and Key’ah Advanced Rural Manufacturing Alliance (KARMA), a Native non-profit organization in the Navajo Nation have jointly expanded KARMA’s MakerPlace initiative to two community centers in the eastern part of the Navajo Nation.
Founded as part of the Navajo Hopi Solidarity project, Tooh Haltsooi Community Center in Sheep Springs, NM, and Tse’ii’ahi’ Community Center in Standing Rock, NM, provide programming and resources for Navajo communities.
Creating MakerPlaces in these spaces means empowering community center staff to create and deliver culturally relevant STEM programming that aligns with their mission and supports their communities.
To achieve this, Tufts CEEO and KARMA have organized an ongoing community of practice with community center staff to support their capacity to develop and run their own robotics and engineering lessons. For the past year, our organizations have met bi-weekly to co-learn LEGO robotics and TinkerCAD technologies alongside Navajo cultural values and community needs.
Starting in summer 2025, staff at these two community centers developed and ran their own robotics and 3D printing lessons with students ranging in age from 2nd grade to early college, many from the local community and some from as far as 60 miles away! In initial workshops, they have identified tremendous student creativity and leadership, as well as parent participation and buy-in to engineering learning.
