Ben started to work at the Fabrication Laboratory, or "Fab Lab," at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh in November, 2017. As the Mobile Fab Lab Education Coordinator, Ben brings digital fabrication directly to students across in both urban and rural settings across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

what's a fab lab?

Started at MIT, a Fab Lab aims to be a dynamic space for people to create using cutting edge technology. While each can look drastically different, they typically have tools like laser cutters and 3D printers as well as a half dozen computers.

how does this relate to environmental education?

As a technological optimist, Ben fully believes that with wisdom and patience, high technology can be used to help solve the countless environmental problems that humanity has gotten itself into. More specifically, it can be a great bedrock and training ground for the next generation of problem solvers and inventors. While the implementation might look drastically different, the Fab Lab shares two of the main pedagogues of environmental education: experiential and life-long learning. If we are to have any chance to make a sustainable world for life as we know it, we need more than the naturalists and ecologists to be thinking of these issues. We need our engineers, mechanics, chemists, bakers, dancers, and everyone else to be thinking about what they can do to help our little blue planet.