Using the 3D Printer Pens to Teach Geometry

During our Technology Week this year, one of the activities involved students using our school’s 3D Printer Pens to improve their knowledge and understanding of 3D shapes. This follows on from last year’s lessons with the 3D Printer Pens in which students created their own 3D Glasses.

File_001 — I provided students with a worksheet made up of different 2D shapes in which to trace. By welding several of the 2D shapes together, students can begin to create their own 3D shapes.

File_000 — This is usually more than enough work for one session. As a maths lesson, it gets students having to think about the number of faces they will need to make their 3D shapes. Afterwards, they can more easily tackle problems related to the number of edges and vertices different 3D shapes have.

Students have great fun using the 3D Printer Pens, and they are particularly useful for facilitating the interdisciplinary curriculum, Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Maths (STEAM). Although I give shapes here as one example, there are endless hands-on activities that can be made possible by getting students to use the 3D Printer Pens. Once students have learnt to properly use these pens, which can take as little as 10-minutes, the teacher simply plays a facilitator role, providing guidance and helping to foster students’ critical thinking and problem solving skills.

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