For more than a decade, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh has generated research-based tools to advance maker education and helped to develop hundreds of makerspaces across the country. Maker education is an approach to learning that positions agency at the center, asking students to become more aware of the design of the world around them, and to begin to see themselves as people who can tinker, hack and improve that design.

With this project, we sought to make art and making education more inclusive by revisiting the Museum’s approach from an anti-ableist lens. By incorporating principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), we sought to build our capacity to better serve young people of all abilities in creative learning experiences that nurture their agency and expand opportunities for expression.

We spent a year building partnerships with students, educators and staff at Pressley Ridge School and Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Pioneer Education Center. Through staff exchanges, professional development, outreach visits, field trips and events, we grew closer, took risks and generated new insights through collaborative research and development.

The resources below share what we learned and provide tools for practitioners who are seeking to make art and making experiences more inclusive: