This book is the result of a three-year research project called Agency by Design that was funded by the Abundance Foundation and conducted at Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The project has put us in touch with more talented and interesting people than we ever could have imagined, and this book would not have been possible without the generous contributions of scores of collaborators every step of the way.

To begin at the beginning, we would like to thank Stephen Kahn of the Abundance Foundation for his ongoing support, his enthusiasm, and his ever present creative spirit. Without him this work would truly not have taken the shape it did. We also want to thank Liz Kahn, whose early vision illuminated the way, and Wendy Donner, for her early and ongoing leadership of the Agency by Design project in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are also especially grateful to Emi Kane, Benita Kline, Hal Leventhal, and the Abundance Foundation Board of Directors, without whose support this project would not have been possible.

We are most grateful for the time, energy, and openness to new experiences expressed by the many members of the Temescal and Oakland Learning Communities, in particular Maite Barloga, Kurt Kaaekuahiwi, Reggie Richardson, and Ronnie Richardson at Claremont Middle School; Carla Aiello, Michelle Beal, Jennifer Dunn, Danielle Erwin, Kathy Hatzke, and Marian Woodside at Emerson Elementary School; Tatum Omari at North Oakland Community Charter School; Thi Bui, Raquel Franker, Carmelita Reyes, and Brooke Toczylowski at Oakland International High School; Tara Austin, Richard Fairly, Natalia Cooper, and Casey Fern at Oakland Technical High School; Beatriz Calderon-Rivera, Harriet Cohen, Jenny Ernst, Jeanine Harmon, Alex Kane, Tom Little, Ilya Pratt, Renee Miller, and Meena Srinivasan at Park Day School; and Ryan Lewis at 826 Valencia. We additionally owe our gratitude to the many maker educators who helped us pilot test early drafts of our thinking routines through their membership in the Agency by Design Learning Community. In particular, we would like to thank Mariah Landers at the Alameda County Office of Education in Hayward, CA; Bruce Hamren at the Athenian School in Danville, CA; Andrea Sachdeva at the Boston ArtScience Prize in Boston, MA; Jeremy Boyle and Melissa Butler at the Children’s Innovation Project in Pittsburgh, PA; Rebecca Grabman at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, PA; Kurt Kaaekuahiwi at Claremont Middle School in Oakland, CA; David Clifford, Corinna Hui, and Kyle Metzner at the East Bay School for Boys in Berkeley, CA; Karen Wilkinson at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA; Peter McKenna and Duncan Wilson at the Fox Meadow School in Scarsdale, NY; Darlease Monteiro at the Global Learning Charter Public School in New Bedford, MA; Steve Teeri at the HYPE Teen Center in Detroit, MI; Gus Goodwin at King Middle School in Portland, ME; Aaron Vanderwerff at the Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland, CA; Steve Davee at the Maker Education Initiative in Oakland, CA; Andy Forest at MakerKids in Toronto, ON; Jaymes Dec at the Marymount School of New York in New York City, NY; Amos Blanton at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA; Alison Rinner Fullerton at MsBiz in Nashville, TN; Tatum Omari at North Oakland Community Charter School in Oakland, CA; Brooke Toczylowski at Oakland International High School in Oakland, CA; Mariano Ulibarri at the Parachute Factory in Las Vegas, NM; Jeanine Harmon, Jenny Ernst, Alex Kane, Renee Miller, and Ilya Pratt at the Park Day School in Oakland, CA; William MacFarlane and Bryce Taylor at Parts and Crafts in Somerville, MA; Lisa Yokana at the Scarsdale High School in Scarsdale, NY; and Tobey Balzer, Vince Durnan, and Jeff Greenfield at the University School of Nashville in Nashville, TN. In addition to the thoughtful educators we worked with, we also extend our warmest gratitude to all of the educators and thought leaders who have generously shared their time, knowledge, and experience throughout the interview strand of this inquiry: Jeremy Boyle, Melissa Butler, David Clifford, Steve Davee, Jaymes Dec, Youssou Fall, Andy Forest, Gus Goodwin, Bruce Hamren, Peter McKenna, Pamela R. Moran, Jeff Sturges, Steve Teeri, Gever Tulley, Mariano Ulibarri, Karen Wilkinson, Duncan Wilson, and Susie Wise.

We would further like to express our appreciation to the people and places that invited us into their making, design, and learning environments and engaged us in informal conversations about the work they do, especially Molly Rubenstein at Artisan’s Asylum in Somerville, MA; Andrea Sachdeva at the Boston ArtScience Prize in Boston, MA; Ellen Hathaway, Justine Macauley, and Gever Tulley at the Brightworks School in San Francisco, CA; Jessica Hobbs and Catie Magee at the Flux Foundation in Oakland, CA; Michelle Hublinka and Parker Thomas at the Maker Education Initiative in San Francisco, CA; and Kim Saxe at the Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA. We would also like to thank the wonderful people we met at American Steel Studios in Oakland, CA; Breakwater School in Portland, ME; the Crucible in Oakland, CA; King Middle School in Portland, ME; NIMBY in Oakland, CA; and Tech Shop in San Francisco, CA. Thanks as well to Brad Gentile at Propel McKeesport, Pittsburgh, PA, for sharing his documentation of student work with us.

Many individuals have played a variety of important behind-the-scenes roles to bring our research on this project—and this book—to fruition. Among them are the host of talented graduate students we have had the privilege to work with as research assistants. We would like to especially thank Cami Gordon, Amy Hachigian, Raquel Jimenez, Sarah May, and Chandell Stone for their exceptional contributions to the ideas expressed in this book. We also thank Peter “Bridge” Bridgford and Gabrielle Santa Donato for pilot testing our nascent interview questions with us and Oskar Kelly, Samuel Rallis, and Max Ryan for serving as our youth tool testers whenever we needed to experiment with an emergent activity or thinking routine. We would like to also thank our colleagues Ron Berger for his inspiration and endorsement, Alex Coppola for his videographic wizardry, Melissa Rivard for helping us make the work of our project visible, Matthew Riecken for graphically organizing our ideas, Andrea Tishman for designing our iconic logo, Christina Smiraglia and Liz Dawes Duraisingh for supporting us with their methodological expertise, Carla Lillvik for serving as a research librarian guide, the CASIE team for helping us share our work with educators around the world through the Project Zero Perspectives conference series, and David Stephen for working so closely with our teacher partners in considering how to incorporate making and design into their learning environments. Of course, it goes without saying that our work on this project would not have been possible without the camaraderie and intellectual administrative support of our many colleagues at Project Zero. In particular, we would like to thank Faith Harvey, Jordy Oakland, and Dami Seung.

Though not directly involved in the inner workings of the Agency by Design research initiative, we additionally offer our thanks to the many friends of our project, including Karen Brennan at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Kylie Peppler at Indiana University Bloomington; Tiffany Tseng at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Stephanie Chang, Lisa Regalla, and Dale Dougherty at the Maker Education Initiative; the Open Bench Project in Portland, ME; the Open Portfolio Project; Natasha Bhalla and Jim Reese at the Washington International School; the #makered Twitter community; and all of the passionate teachers who have attended our conference presentations and professional development workshop sessions across the United States and around the world.

As we look to the future, we would like to especially thank Wendy Donner, Ilya Pratt, Brooke Toczylowski, and Aaron Vanderwerff for carrying the Agency by Design torch forward and Jeff Evancho and Megan Cicconi for sparking enthusiasm for this work in new audiences.

We would like to additionally express our gratitude to our editor Kate Bradford and to all of her staff at Jossey-Bass, especially Lily Miller, Pete Gaughan, Connor O’Brien, and Haritha Dharmarajan. Last but not least, we would like to thank our families for all of the love, support, and patience they have offered throughout the process of writing this book. We are especially grateful to our spouses Angela Mittiga, Bryan Polashenski, Jake Ryan, and Bob Sowa.