"To describe them simply, makerspaces are community centers with tools. Makerspaces combine manufacturing equipment, community, and education for the purposes of enabling community members to design, prototype and create manufactured works that wouldn’t be possible to create with the resources available to individuals working alone. These spaces can take the form of loosely-organized individuals sharing space and tools, for-profit companies, non-profit corporations, organizations affiliated with or hosted within schools, universities or libraries, and more. All are united in the purpose of providing access to equipment, community, and education, and all are unique in exactly how they are arranged to fit the purposes of the community they serve.
Makerspaces represent the democratization of design, engineering, fabrication and education. They are a fairly new phenomenon, but are beginning to produce projects with significant national impacts." - Makezine.com
I have set up some links to pages where descriptions, resources and examples to use when creating a makerspace for your school. In order to remain as close to the original philosophy as possible, much of what you will find here is information taken from the "Makerspace Playbook." Here, I provide some help with some customizations and suggestions on setting up a makerspace in your school. Get your free .pdf copy here: http://spaces.makerspace.com/