ABSTRACT
This chapter describes recent scholarship surrounding creativity, social imagination and makerspaces, sharing a case study focused on a pre-service teaching programme, where students shared their experiences teaching environmental sustainability and stewardship to early-learning classrooms. The project data suggest that interactions within a makerspace foster play, exploration and participatory learning, and instil a culture of creation rather than consumption. The maker movement has gained traction in Canada, but there is still much room for further exploration and expansion. Makerspaces provide the context for early learners to physically engage with their learning process in encouraging, creative and low-risk ways. The pre-service teachers encouraged the children to draw upon their prior knowledge and creative self to engage in exploratory talk. A significant part of this project considered ways in which early years practitioners could mentor pre-service teachers in observing and documenting early literacy engagement. Makerspaces can also be a positive force for social and institutional change at a grassroots level.
