3D Printing in Education

3D Printing in Education

Learning by Making

Today’s students will enter a job market that values different skills than their parents and teachers learned. Stratasys 3D Printing Solutions go hand-in-hand with teaching strategies that develop the most in-demand skills for science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) fields.

Inspire. Engage. Prepare.

To prepare students for STEAM careers that value critical thinking over procedure and recall, educators are embracing teaching strategies like Project-Based Learning that require sustained engagement.

3D Printing Solutions bring students' work to life, building excitement and momentum behind any design project. A quick turn from idea to prototype keeps students engaged. And it gives them time to explore more ideas, analyze problems in-depth, and develop the persistence they'll need to excel in today’s fastest-growing and most rewarding fields.

10 Ways 3D Printing Can Be Used In Education

  • Engineering design students can print out prototypes
  • Architecture students can print out 3D models of designs
  • History classes can print out historical artifacts for examination
  • Graphic Design students can print out 3D versions of their artwork
  • Geography students can print out topography, demographic, or population maps
  • Cooking students can create molds for food products
  • Automotive students can print out replacement parts or modified examples of existing parts for testing
  • Chemistry students can print out 3D models of molecules
  • Biology students can print out cells, viruses, organs, and other critical biological artifacts
  • Math students can print out “problems” to solve in their own learning spaces, from scale models to city infrastructural design challenges

Importance of 3D Printing in Education

3D printing is a technology that allows users to turn any digital file into a three dimensional physical product. 3D printing also allows for massive customization and unlike with music and movies, everything that is printed is protected by copyright. One of the good things about this printing technology is that it changes the dynamic of consumer culture. In other words, it turns users from being  passive consumers to active creators.

How beneficial 3D printing is in Education?

World wide  schools are adopting this innovative technology, 3D printing provides several features that can revolutionize education here are some of them

  • It provides teachers with 3 dimensional visual aids that they can use in their classroom particulalry in illustrating a hard to grasp concept
  • 3D printers make it easy for teachers to seize the interest of their students compared to just showing the pictorial representations of objects.
  • It enhances hands-on learning and learning by doing. Using this prototyping  technology, students will be able to produce realistic 3 dimensional mini-models . ( great for engineering, architecture, and multi-media arts students ).
  • It provides more room for interactive class activities. In biology, for instance, teachers can create a 3D model of the human heart, head. skeleten...etc to teach students about the human body.

Given all these attributes, 3D printing seems to hold some promising and ground-breaking innovation that will definitely assist in the fulfillment of a productive educational experience

3D Printing in Math

We have already seen many ways in which 3D printing and mathematics have converged. Most commonly it has been used to help students envision graphs and mathematical models. Some students have a difficult time grasping numbers and diagrams that they can only see on paper. This isn’t a learning disability, but rather just the way that some of our brains function. 3D printing helps those students who have a more difficult time envisioning equations, elaborate graphs, and complex mathematical models to more easily see them through tangible representations. Most importantly though, 3D printing brings a “cool” factor into a subject which could normally be quite boring.

 

 

3D Printing in History

History is probably the subject that has the most to gain through 3D printing technology. Museums all over the globe are finally beginning to see the potential that 3D scanning and printing can have on not only making replicas of ancient artifacts, but also backing them up and providing a more hands-on feel of them. Previously, when you were to visit a museum, you could “look but not touch” the artifacts. Now with the availability of high-end 3D printers and scanners, replicas can be touched, and many of these replicas are virtually indistinguishable from their real counterparts. Now imagine if every history class had the ability to 3D print replicas of artifacts from a massive library of downloadable STL files. Every classroom would now have access to museum artifacts from the luxury of their own school.

3D Printing in Art

Art and design classes are surely going to see tremendous effects of 3D printing. The technology will open a whole new realm of possibilities for art teachers. Lesson plans could expand to include 3D design, and become much more interesting, with students being able to bring their designs to life via 3D printing. No longer do we have to rely on 2-dimensional screens in order to view 3-dimensional models. Comprehensive projects could be taken on, on a national or even global level, with the ability to share 3D printable art design with anyone, including other schools in the world.  Classes in New York could work on projects with classes in India, and then 3D print their final results in both locations.  There are many unique forms of art that have come about in the past few years through the use of 3D printing, but we have not even begun to scratch the surface of what is possible.

3D Printing provides a brand new method of creating art. With 3D printing available in art classes around the world, our future artists will be the ones to really help the technology reach its potential in all of the different fields of art out there.

 

BENEFITS OF 3D PRINTING FOR EDUCATION

Preparing students for their future careers and teaching them valuable skills. These are not the only important aspects of implementing 3D printing in educational programs. It serves as an extra revolutionizing tool to aid in many areas of education and provides teachers with new ways of getting their message across!

  • Capture interest of students - Young students get bored with lots of text, making information visible helps but when you truly want to keep students interested, you print it in 3 dimensions.
  • Stimulate interaction during class - By using a 3D printer, any class will instantly be transformed in an interactive learning experience. Print parts of a skeleton to use for a biology class or use it for prototyping in technique classes.
  • Create tangible aids - Difficult concepts will not only be visible but also tangible. Anything you would normally draw out on the blackboard, can now be explained through models that students can touch and investigate from any angle.
  • Hands-on learning through 3D models - Especially for art and technique classes, it is great to use the prototyping capabilities to make students’ creative ideas and designs come to live.

 

 

 

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