Email Newsletters
Sign up for one of our email newsletters.
Updated 6 hours ago
Students gathered around their desks in Stephen Lauso's third-grade classroom at Gill Hall Elementary to sketch designs of American Indian homes they had learned about in their social studies class.
Using iPads, they researched the topic. Then came the time to build their drawings inside a Minecraft-like program on the iPads at their desks to get them ready for construction, courtesy of the 3-D printer in the rear of the classroom.
"It's really exciting," said Kendal Fernandes, 8. "It's like taking a break from having to do work."
Still, Kendal admitted, she was learning a lot while having fun.
Administrators at Gill Hall Elementary School in the West Jefferson Hills School District purchased the school's first 3-D printer to start the 2015-16 school year for about $1,500. By next year, the goal is for the school to have opened a STEAM — science, technology, education, art and math — lab with multiple 3D printers and added technology to bolster education.
For now, Lauso is designing a workflow to add the technology into daily classroom learning, he said.
"Having a 3-D printer really doesn't mean anything. You have to find ways to use it," Lauso said.
The 3-D printer has become an integral part of Lauso's classroom.
The first project students tackled was building a quadcopter that they were able to fly, but also taught them about the metric system.
"This makes it more exciting," Lauso said, explaining that the students not only had to figure out weight, but also height and width of objects that would allow the quadcopter to fly.
During his latest social studies lesson on Native Americans, Lauso is having each student construct homes from the time period. Once designed, he will make them all in the 3D printer and the students will have a keepsake.
"Before, we would have showed pictures and videos. We could have used clay to build these, but that isn't permanent," he said.
Lauso also has used the 3-D printer as an incentive for students to get their work done or do it better. He pulls sticks from a cup with students' names on it, and those selected get to go to the back of the classroom and make something extra, like a keychain, with the printer.
The classroom was nearly silent as students worked quickly to finish the project.
"It makes school more fun," said Campbell Thomas, 9.
During the last several months, Lauso was buying filament for the 3-D printer so the students could use it each day. Now that it's become a large part of learning in the classroom, he said, he put in an order with the school district for a slew of colors to make the 3-D printer more viable.
"We're using it all the time," he said.
While Lauso's classroom is fun, learning is important, he said. The 3-D printer is enhancing the lessons he's teaching.
"It encourages hands-on learning and meaningful collaboration," Lauso said. "When they grow up and work together, they will have to work in teams. This is teaching them that now. It's really cool and it's meaningful."
The students agree.
"I think it was the best science project ever," Campbell told school board members last week, when he explained the need for the printers in the classroom, and his love for building the quadcopter.
Stephanie Hacke is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 412-388-5818 or shacke@tribweb.com.
TribLive commenting policy
You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service.
We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.
While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.
We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments â€" either by the same reader or different readers.
We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.
We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.
We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.
We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.
