A STEAM Community Center Serving Flagstaff and Northern Arizona
Tynkertopia, Inc. is a non-profit community center in Flagstaff, AZ. We focus on creativity, inquiry, and STEAM knowledge and skills. Flagstaff is America’s First STEM Community, and Tynkertopia is Flagstaff’s STEAM Community Center. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) + A for the Arts = STEAM.
Tynkertopia is a place filled with opportunities to play, invent and launch imaginations into overdrive! Designed for kids, parents, teachers, and community members, Tynkertopia builds STEAM skills and encourages independent thinking, questioning, inquiring, designing, building, exploring and tinkering!
Tynkertopia was a 2021 Viola Awards Finalist in the STEAM catefgory. Other finalists were Lowell Observatory, the Flagstaff Festival of Science, and the Parched Exhibit at the Coconino Center for the Arts.
Flagstaff is America’s First STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Community, and Tynkertopia, Inc. is Flagstaff’s STEAM (STEM + The Arts) Community Center. Its mission is to expand the creativity and inquiry skills of tynkerers of all ages by inviting curiosity, inspiring wonder, encouraging playfulness, and celebrating unique solutions.
Tynkertopia is a place filled with opportunities to play, invent and launch imaginations into overdrive! Designed for kids, parents, teachers, and community members, Tynkertopia encourages independent thinking, questioning, inquiring, designing, building, exploring and tynkering!
No digital-age learning space/place survives and thrives today without technology; but no amount of bright, shiny new technology can take the place of inspiration and dedication. So, Tynkertopia does not focus exclusively on the newest emerging technologies and tools; it focuses on creativity, inquiry, and excitement in learning. Tynkertopia is less of a classroom and more of an environment for experimentation, discovery, learning, and fun.
Dr. Alice Christie describes Tynkertopia as a natural culmination of her experiences teaching science and technology, as well as reading and writing, for over 50 years (AZ Daily Sun). She actualized her vision of a hands-on community learning space and created Tynkertopia, a STEAM Community Center designed to empower participants to cultivate skills, strategies, and confidence as independent, lifelong learners. The Tynkertopia motto is Think with Your Hands, Learn by Doing.
As word spread about the free-to-all STEAM Center, the number of daily visitors increased exponentially. Currently, Tynkertopia serves between 10 and 60 visitors each day. Numbers tell the story of the relevance of Tynkertopia to Flagstaff: over 8000 kids, parents, grandparents, teachers, and community members have visited Tynkertopia since its opening 17 months ago. Dr. Christie’s non-profit organization gives her the opportunity to continue to do what she loves: teach, inspire, and serve her community.
Tynkertopia partners with the US Department of Agriculture and St. Mary’s Food Alliance to offer a free meal to every child between 1- and 18-years of age who visits Tynkertopia. Growing minds require good nutrition, so Tynkertopia is proud to provide nutritious meals to all who wish them.