Yasmin B. Kafai is the Lori and Michael Milken President's Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research empowers students to use computer programming and machine learning to design games, tell interactive stories, and sew electronic textiles with the goal to support creative expression, build social connections, and broaden participation in computing. Read more
Native American youth worked in teams to create place-based, interactive stories and games for their communities. Our research offers insights into the embedded cultural biases in the structures of computational tools and how to promote deeper integration of cultural practices in culturally responsive computational tools.
bioMAKERlab is a wetlab starter kit and activities that engage high school students and teachers in synthetic biology by building genetic circuits that let microorganisms change color, smell, and shape. The project involves students from Philadelphia public high schools and youth in outreach programs from The Franklin Institute, a Philadelphia-based science museum.
In MAKE CODE PLAY we describe three projects that expand game design beyond the screen. Our construction kit MaKey MaKey can be purchased and reused for the projects, and a programming tool, Scratch that is accessible and freely available around the world.
Connected Messages is a construction kit that lets youth express personal and communal ideas by designing interactive community murals. The project was launched by the Maker Jawn Initiative across five Free Library branches in Philadelphia, and over 1,000 youth collaborated to create murals from foam boards, markers, and low-cost networking technologies. The murals function as programmable public displays that connect local neighborhoods and online audiences in Philadelphia.
