Barnes & Noble is Celebrating Educator Appreciation Days by Giving Away a Free MakerSpace

Bookseller Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest book and media retailer, which hosted the first retail Mini Maker Faire in October, is celebrating its annual Educator Appreciation Days in honor of pre-K through grade 12 teachers and administrators starting on January 9th and continuing until January 17th. The yearly event traditionally offers teachers a wide variety of discounts on products and media, in-store activities and a storewide focus on educational materials and supplies. This year the festivities will also include a chance for a lucky educator to win a fully stocked makerspace for their school that will be packed with all sorts of books and technology that can be used to teach their students valuable skills like 3D printing and coding.

The contents of the makerspace kit were designed to give teachers everything that they need to create a well-rounded STEM curriculum, including materials to give students hands-on designing, handcrafting and constructing learning experiences. Sweepstakes prizes will include a da Vinci Jr. 1.0 3D printer from leading 3D printer manufacturer XYZprinting, an Ozobot Classroom Kit, a Raspberry Pi Kit, a littleBits Deluxe Kit and Electronic Snap Circuits from ELENCO. The prize will also include a copy of Extraordinaires Design Studio PRO creative thinking game, which is a product that is exclusive to Barnes & Noble.

“During our Mini Maker Faire this past November, partnerships with schools across the country helped make it a tremendous success and allowed us to introduce the Maker Movement & tech literacy to our customers. We want to help a teacher to get their own MakerSpace established in their school so students can be inspired daily to ideate, invent and create,” explained Barnes & Noble’s Vice President of Business Development Sarah DiFrancesco.

The winner will also receive a huge collection of educational books that will help them teach their students how to use technology and offer lessons in project collaboration, cooperative learning and teamwork. The book prize package will include titles like Making Makers by AnnMarie Thomas, The Encyclopedia of Electronic Components Volume 2 by Charles Platt, Teach Your Kids to Code by Bryson Payne, and Design for 3D Printing by Samuel N. Bernier.

As with every Educator Appreciation Days event, any public, private or homeschool educators can shop at their local Barnes & Noble store or go online to receive all sorts of special discounts and prizes. Discounts will include 25% discount on personal and classroom books as well as other products like toys, games, music and movies. Barnes & Noble will also offer 10% off the list price for any tech tools that will be used to help bring technology and STEM education into classrooms. Additionally, teachers can receive 10% off the list price on all eReaders and NOOK tablets as well as 10% off of all in-store Café purchases.

The entire Educator Appreciation Days event makerspace sweepstakes prize package is valued at more than $4,000, and eligible educators can visit their local Barnes & Noble retail location and ask how to enter. Contest entry is available starting on Saturday, January 9, and will end on Sunday, January 17. Additionally, as part of Educator Appreciation Days, Barnes & Noble locations all over the country will be hosting free maker- and STEM-related workshops throughout the event. While topics will vary from location to location, events will include Barnes & Noble book fairs, workshops on setting up makerspaces in schools, using technology in education and featured Children’s and Teen titles and award-winning books.  Discuss this story in the Barnes and Noble Makerspace forum on 3DPB.com.