3D printing offers educational benefits and connects to science and math standards. It allows students to design projects, develop engineering skills, and take pride in creating something themselves. For schools just starting 3D printing programs, documents recommend choosing reliable but affordable printers and having students focus on design rather than just downloading files. Teachers should provide age-appropriate projects that incorporate both 3D printing and core design skills.

1. 3D Printing in the Classroom
David Thornburg, PhD
Norma Thornburg, MA

2. Google searches on 3D Printers
Recent Evolution of 3D Printers:
Something for everyone...
Phase 1: Hobbyists
Kits

3. Phase 2: Early Adopters
Assembled but might need adjustments

4. Phase 3: Maturing Market
Ready to use out of the box
Phase 4: Professional grade

5. 3D Printing
Not a new topic
Constantly changing
Increasingly important
Strong connections to education
but first...
3D Printing is the Next
Industrial Revolution

9. What educational projects can be
“crowdsourced”?

10. Hybrid technology
Recycled materials

11. 3D Printing comes to school...
Libraries need to become more like kitchens and less like
grocery stores - a place where patrons are able to
construct knowledge, where they can create, build, make
and be actively engaged.
Erica Compton
Idaho Commission for Libraries
Printing in the classroom...
Recovers from the loss of tinkering - pride in making
something from scratch
Connects to new Science standards
Connects to Common Core State Standards in
Mathematics

12. Educational printer requirements...
Good out of the box experience
Reasonable price
Reliable
Remember it is still early in the game but schools
should start now!
What should students make?
Avoid just downloading cool things from Thingiverse.
Design is the primary task - printing is the reward.
Create age-appropriate tasks.

13. NGSS elements
K-12 Science Education Should Reflect the Interconnected Nature of Science
as it is Practiced and Experienced in the Real World.
The Next Generation Science Standards are student performance
expectations – NOT curriculum.
The Science Concepts in the NGSS Build Coherently from K–12.
The NGSS Focus on Deeper Understanding of Content as well as Application
of Content.
Science and Engineering are Integrated in the NGSS, from K–12.
The NGSS are designed to prepare students for college, career, and
citizenship.
The NGSS and Common Core State Standards (English Language Arts and
Mathematics) are Aligned.
Eight Math Standards: 3D Printing
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
3D Printing is a wonderful tool for
developing engineering skills.

14. We are all designers now. We may as well get
good at it.
Chris Anderson – Former editor of Wired
Magazine, author of Makers: The New
Industrial Revolution
We are all designers now. We may as well get
good at it.
Chris Anderson – Former editor of Wired
Magazine, author of Makers: The New
Industrial Revolution

15. Clark Barnett bugs

16. //round piece//
$fn=100;
difference() {
sphere (30);
cylinder (70, 18, 18, center=true);
rotate ([0, 90, 0]) {
cylinder (70, 18, 18,
center=true);
}
rotate ([90, 0 ,0]) {
cylinder (70, 18, 18,
center=true);
}
}
Other approaches...

19. Process for student projects
1.Choose the project
2.Determine the optimal software to use
3.Do the design and export to STL
4.Fabricate the project

21. Empowering kids
From: Aaron Bruno
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 11:48 AM
To: Kim Brand
Subject: Happy to help
I would be very happy to attend the camp and if possible I
would love to help teach. I can have the list of top ten
finished by tomorrow morning and I do have quite a few
models, I have been working with tinker cad For about 3
weeks now and i know quite a bit of information about it,
so I am very confident in my teaching abilities, so if
possible I would like to help teach.
Dthornburg@aol.com
Nthornburg@gmail.com
http://thornburgthoughts.wordpress.com