Two 11-year-old boys at Dutch Ridge Elementary School in Beaver County receive plastic tubs of Lego pieces and mutually decide, given the provided green and brown colors, to make a jungle scene together. The boys begin by placing pieces for the ground to establish some verticality.
“We need some elevation,” Roman matter-of-factly tells his buddy Nolan.
“Should we build a cave?” Nolan replies.
In less than a half hour, the boys have built a lush jungle, complete with trees, wildlife and a cave with patches of moss.
This represents an average activity during Matt’s Maker Space’s Brick Clubs, which use team-building exercises with Lego-building to encourage social and emotional development for kiddos who may need some help socializing.
Matt’s Maker Space, a nonprofit organization focused on STEAM/STEM-based creativity and learning, began in 2016 in the Mt. Lebanon School District. The club was started by Noelle Conover, whose Lego-enthusiast son, Matt, passed away from cancer at the age of 12 in 2002. The loss inspired her to start a program to help others learn and develop through Lego building and similar activities.
Conover tells Pittsburgh City Paper that she loves when children ask her who “Matt” is and appreciates the opportunity to tell youngsters his story.
The Maker Spaces — featuring activities such as 3D printing, crafts, and robotics, in addition to Lego building — have come to a wide variety of organizations throughout the Pittsburgh area, including Western Psychiatric Hospital, Point Park University, and the Mt. Lebanon Public Library. Most of these spaces serve children, but some include adults.
The Brick Clubs follow a national trend and models the Brick-by-Brick program created in official collaboration with Lego by Play Included, an organization based in the United Kingdom. So far, Matt’s Maker Space has established Brick Clubs at the Mt. Lebanon School District as well as Dutch Ridge Elementary School, and Conover plans to expand their reach even further.
The clubs offer obvious STEM-based educational benefits, but, as Emily Sanders, assistant-superintendent for Beaver Area School District, tells City Paper, that’s not the main focus.
“They’re making something, right? And they’re using some of those terminologies that you would in a STEM,” says Sanders. “But this is really about human connection, building friendships and that social, emotional learning.”
Play Included research originally found strong results among neurodivergent students who may have difficulties making friends and forming bonds with their peers, but Brick Clubs now cast a wider net, Sanders says. At Dutch Ridge, the program welcomes all kids who would like to attend, and it’s said to be about evenly split between girls and boys, despite the marketing of Lego historically leaning more toward boys.
“As COVID came, and kids were isolated for a year or more, we really started looking at, how could this really work in the mainstream, with all kids, not just neurodivergent learners?” Sanders says.
The Brick Club at Dutch Ridge takes up half of a so-called Zen Den classroom — on one side of a partition, students can relax and write poetry in a bean bag chair or blow off steam on an elliptical bike, and on the other side, students find themselves in a Lego utopia. A painted mural spells out “Brick Club” in 3D lettering, images from Lego set boxes adorn the walls, and colorful chairs circle the white tables used for building.
The club enlists students in two main activities: freeform building and structured building following an instruction manual. For the more structured building, students work in groups with three roles: one person who reads and explains the instructions, one person who gathers pieces, and one person who builds. This encourages students to work together and talk with each other in pursuit of a shared goal.
“Social emotional learning is really the foundation for all of this,” Sanders says. “Teamwork and realizing what they need to work on. When we say, okay, what can we work on next time? They might say, ‘I need more patience.’”
After a successful build, students award each other with badges based on their individual performance. Examples of badges include “Creative Genius,” “Cool Communicator,” “Brilliant Builder” and “Mighty Mate.”
Nolan and Roman carefully scanned the badges and had an easy time complimenting each other. The two formed a friendship before the club and grew closer by building together. Both will be sixth-graders this school year, making them among the oldest at their school. Both tell CP they would be interested in mentoring new students who join the club.
As the new school year begins, new kids will get the opportunity to make friends, polish their social skills, and pat each other on the back. Nolan and Roman have proven themselves to be seasoned veterans.
“I picked ‘Clever Problem-Solver’ for Roman because he found that one piece,” Nolan says.
“I would pick Nolan for the ‘Mighty Mate,’” Roman says.
