South Whittier School District’s Graves Middle School has been selected to take part in the GE Additive Education Program and will receive a 3D printer beginning in the 2018-2019 school year.
Graves will be receiving a Premium Polar Cloud account, a Dremel Digilab 3D45, which is a high performance 3D printer, a filament for the printer, and curriculum and lesson plans from STEAMtrax, Makers Empire, Tinkercad and BlocksCAD. Teachers will also be receiving trainings and webinars to prepare them for the curriculum and to ensure that Graves is properly set up and actively designing and printing.
The equipment will allow student to transform digital models into physical objects. Graves will also receive a dashboard on Polar Cloud. This dashboard will provide data on student engagement, design, and print activity. The data is to help encourage student engagement and learning through a collaborative environment. There will also be recognition and awards through the program for high performing schools and students.
“We are so happy to continue to build our STEM program and increase opportunities for our kids to experience high quality STEM instruction and programs,” Dr. Fraijo, Graves’ principal, stated. “We want to thank our teacher, Mrs. Nakajima, for getting this done. It will make a difference for our kids.”
GE is currently investing $10 million over the next five years into education programs for primary, secondary, college, and universities by providing 3D printers to “help develop the ecosystem and accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing worldwide.”
The program received 3,000 school applications that came from 41 different countries.