Makers Box: A Creative Practice Toolkit

The Makers Box is the outcome of a collaborative project between staff and students at the University of Southampton, and is rooted in the team’s shared experience and belief that creativity and exploration are grounded in making. Through the act of making, individuals can investigate ideas, deepen understanding, and ask meaningful questions about the world around them. Drawing on a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the team explored different forms of making and adapted them for use in school contexts.

The project aimed to design a mobile kit for schools that would broaden young people’s perspectives, encouraging creative thinking across and beyond traditional subject boundaries.

As such, the kit was developed using data gathered from colleagues at the University of Southampton across a range of disciplines. Contributors were invited to share or create worksheets that incorporated making within their fields. As a result, materials were collected from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including astronomy and physics, palaeontology, geology and microgeology, earth science, creative writing, education, visual arts, and plastic arts.

The team then synthesised and refined these materials, transforming them into a series of hands-on workshop activities. Careful selection ensured that the chosen activities were suitable for school environments and provided a balanced and engaging experience of creative practice.

Each worksheet and its accompanying resources are designed to guide pupils to “see, think, and make” through different disciplinary lenses. The final collection introduces students to a range of perspectives, including those of the Earth Scientist, Artist, Poet, Palaeontologist, and Sculptor.

This project was led by Dr Ran Peleg (Associate Professor in Science Education), Dr Luci Eldridge (Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Winchester School of Art), Professor Will May (Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature), Dr Ian Coombs (Research Assistant), Lucy May, Jess Moorhouse, and Sienna Westphal (BA Fine Art Students from Winchester School of Art).

We are grateful to the following colleagues for contributing ideas that shaped the final activities: Dr Esther Sumner (Associate Professor in Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre), Dr Cian McGuire (Deputy Director of the British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility at the National Oceanography Centre), Dr Sadie Jones (Astronomy Public Engagement Leader and Senior Teaching Fellow in Astronomy & Physics), Dr Tammy Horton (Research Scientist and Discovery Collections Manager at the National Oceanography Centre) and Jacob Hall (Sculpture Technician at Winchester School of Art).

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Box 1
Activity 1 (Orange) – Draw like an Earth Scientist:
Creating annotated sketches
Activity 2 (Yellow) – Write like a poet: Writing a poem
Activity 3 (Green) – Think like a Palaeontologist: Investigating fossils

Box 2
Activity 4 (Red) – See like an artist: Thinking about colour
Activity 5 (Pink) – Write like a poet: Writing a poem
Activity 6 (Blue) – Make like a sculptor: Making casts

Each activity is supported by:
An activity outline – for teachers
A PowerPoint to support activity
Task sheets and work sheets

There is no expectation for how these activities should be used. They are not sequential and some activities may be more suitable for particular year groups.

Teachers are free to amend, share and copy the materials. They may be shared outside of the school, however, they may not be repurposed for commercial gain.

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Photographs by Lucy May, Jess Moorhouse and Sienna Westphal.