Are you interested in 3D Printing and want it taught in your school? Then know what to do in this episode. Tom and Tracy Hazzard show you some of the things you can take action on to bring not just you but an entire village to make it happen. 3D Printing offers so many opportunities for the bright young minds in the future. Start that path in your school now!
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Listen to the podcast here:
I Want 3D Printing In My School!
This is the Ask Us Anything segment.
Our anything is from a high school student. She asks, “I want 3D print in my school. What do I do?” I love that. You’ve got to push.
You have to push or pull since you’re in the school. It’s very tough in schools especially if they don’t have a lot of budget for these things. I would say do anything you can to get involved. Find out if any parents of any of your classmates in any way use 3D printing or are involved in it. Maybe you can get them to come in and give a talk to one of your classes.
Give a demo, bring in a 3D printer. You might get them to excite the administration with how packed you get that class.
Point out the administration, how they’re not keeping up with the times, then maybe they can make it a priority.
Make a club, have a 3D Print Club. You can get a parent out there to help sponsor you. You might even get a business to help sponsor you.
Provide a 3D printer potentially as well.
3D Printing In School: Our kids need to come out of school with design skills, 3D printing skills.
There are a lot of 3D printers gathering dust in some people’s homes. I bet you if you went to the PTA or your Parent Teacher Organization and you ask them to put out that question in their newsletter or their email blast, you might find yourself with more printers than you know what to do with.
Another option is if you have a class that you think is somewhat relevant to 3D printing. There are a lot of classes, whether it’s a science class or a math class or if you have an art class, you could suggest to the teacher maybe having a field trip to a local makerspace or if you have a UPS Store near you that has 3D printers. There are only about 60 of them across the US, but maybe there’s one near you. Maybe starting with a field trip to bring awareness to the potential of 3D printing would also be an easy way to get started.
If you’re a parent out there reading, you’ve got to go and demand it because this is the new economy. Our kids need to come out of school with design skills, 3D printing skills. They need to understand this. We’re starting now. Ours are one in six, we’re not going to let them fall into the cracks and not be ready for this. You have to go out there and talk to the school district.
Get involved and I know that there aren’t a lot of teachers that have 3D printing experience. They’re the only ones that have teacher certifications to be allowed to teach, but maybe it’s enough to be a volunteer. You help volunteer and sponsor an extracurricular club if you have the time, during those hours. Even to make some noise at your school, get other people interested and maybe you can help it happen.
One other thing is there are a lot of contests going on in 3D printing right now and they’re open to student work. You can win printers. There’s a bunch going on. I’ll try to post them on our website if I can, if I know about them. That’s at HazzDesign.com. It’s on the 3D print tips, tools and resources page.
If you have any other suggestions or related questions to this, you can come and find us there on the same website. On every page, there’s a send voicemail button and send us an email. We’re very happy to participate and help in this conversation.
We especially want to help in the education conversation. The biggest hurdle for a lot of people is to get educated both from educating the educator standpoint and educating the students as well. We need to help that happen. If we can facilitate that, we will. Let us know what we can do for you.
Thank you for the question. That was a great one and we enjoyed answering it so until next time.
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