This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
High school students don't all love school; some of them find it boring, or useless, or restrictive. I want to give my students the chance to discover that school can be interesting, useful, and creative. This project will help them do that by building and using a 3-D printer.
These students are juniors and seniors in an urban, high-poverty public high school.
These classes are composed of a broad range of students of many ability levels. There are roughly as many girls and boys, which is unusual in physics, and the ethnic mix reflects the school's population. Many of these students haven't had much opportunity to work on complex, technical projects before.
My Project
My students will be using the upgrade kit to expand the capabilities of a 3-D printer. They will have to learn and apply skills like soldering, reading technical documents and following complex instructions, and troubleshooting. Students will be expected track of their progress in writing, and to create a presentation about the experience at the end. Once the students have the printer assembled and working, they will have the challenge of learning how to use it, requiring them to learn the appropriate software, design principles, all in addition to the mechanics of the printer. The filament will provide the materials needed to make their designs a reality. Students will design things for future projects and labs, to manufacture parts that will improve their data collection.
If you've ever had to sit through a class that is just an endless series of lectures, you can imagine how my students will respond to this project.
This project will give my students the chance to interact with a technology that is becoming more ubiquitous and important all the time, a chance that they won't get any other way.
More than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Morton and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
