How 3D Printing Gives Affordable New Possibilities for STEAM Education
Falling costs have put 3D printers within reach of schools, giving curriculum leaders a hands-on way to build STEAM skills.
How 3D printers for schools fit STEAM, with a 2026 update on printable models and the health and safety guidance schools should follow.
This 2016 article from EdCircuit Staff goes through how a 3D printer can serve each part of STEAM: science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. A section added in 2026 covers what school leaders weigh today when choosing printers, mainly where models come from and what the health and safety research says.
C urriculum designers and superintendents who are looking for innovative ways to emphasize Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) in their curriculum are turning to 3D printers – with extraordinary results.
Recent advances in 3D printing have made this amazing technology affordably in reach of school systems. These printers offer a variety of ways for students to engage with class curriculum and build skills that will be useful in the future workplace.
Georgette Yakman, the creator of STEAM education, described STEAM as, “Science and Technology, interpreted through Engineering and the Arts, all based in elements of Mathematics.” With that in mind as an overarching framework, here are some ways that 3D printers can be used to further each of the five aspects of STEAM education:
Science
3D printers can be used by both teachers and pupils to build ready-to-print models in biology and chemistry.
For biology classrooms, 3D printers can create real-life models of biomolecules, including proteins and nucleic acids such as DNA. The software program VMD allows teachers or pupils to load a molecule directly, edit it for a more rigid physical structure, then upload to the 3D printer maker space for printing.
Aaron Oakley, an Australia-based 3D molecule maker, has some examples of designs and prints on his Thingiverse page.
Students and teachers can also use 3D printers to generate physical models of chemical compounds. The NIH currently sponsors a 3D Print Exchange that hosts blueprints of thousands of chemical structures.
The Exchange started in 2007 as a way to help researchers print accurate chemical models. It now gives chemistry educators a way to engage students who are hands-on, tactile or spatial learners.
Using the tools available at the Exchange, they can readily print out 3D models of chemical structures. These models can be utilized by the teacher during lectures and presentations, or created by the students themselves as part of classroom activities.
Technology
3D printing gives students a multitude of opportunities to build practical skills that will help them later in life. Students who use the technology learn to interact directly with state-of-the-art software and see the results quickly: it provides a shorter route between design and implementation than anything previously available in the classroom. CAD students, for example, can quickly and inexpensively implement their designs into practical applications.
It also offers younger learners a chance to work with software. Apps such as Tinkercad and Thinker Thing enable children to imagine new toys, design them in an easy-to-learn software program, then print them in real life.
3D printing also offers a way for students to share designs and experience remotely with other students worldwide, like a modern day pen pal system. A variety of online communities, such as Thingiverse, enables Makers, including students, hobbyists, and professional researchers, to collaborate, share designs and how-to advice. This gives students the added benefit of experience with distributed teams and knowledge, two key components of the 21st-century connection economy.
Engineering
3D printers offer a unique way for students to develop their engineering skills in a classroom setting. Students can be given an assignment or problem to solve, and set about to solve it using the 3D printer.
A recent example that stands out: students on a research team in Washington University – St. Louis, designed a prosthetic arm for a 13-year-old girl who had outgrown her previous one, and printed it out, at a total cost of $200, a fraction of the standard $6000 cost for such a device.
Editor’s note (2026): This article gives the cost of the prosthetic arm as $200 here and as $250 in the Art section below.
Another area that has garnered interest among 3D printing students and researchers: creating braille objects or similar tactile versions of books for visually impaired children.
Art
STEAM emphasizes that art is a process involving design and creativity, and 3D printing gives students a unique opportunity to imagine, design, then quickly see the tangible results of the work. It gives students a chance to apply art, rather than simply learn it.
It also provides a way for students to cheaply and safely improve the design of existing technologies – as in the case of the students who engineered the $250 prosthetic arm.
This engages the right-brained, creative side of students: it enables them to imagine a device or product in their minds, design it, then see the practical results come out of the printer.
Mathematics
As with chemistry and biology, 3D printers make it possible to create physical representations of geometric objects: the Simons Foundation gives examples of printed shapes such as a fractal and a torus.
Much of 3D printing also requires a practical application of the basics of geometry and numbers. Designing requires taking real-life measurements and calculations and using them to input into software.
Improving designs also require taking geometry into consideration: reports indicate that many of the standard molecular models, such as are seen in pictures in chemistry textbooks, are fragile when constructed by current consumer 3D printer models. Hence, adjusting the proportions and dimensions is necessary to produce a more durable piece. This gives students a taste of the practical mathematics they would use as engineers or technical specialists.
What’s Next?
So, what are the next steps for a superintendent or curriculum designer looking to implement 3D printing in their classrooms?
There is a range of 3D printing tools available, starting from several hundred dollars up to the thousands. Many of them can be found on Amazon.
There is a range of how-to sites for using 3D printers: Thingiverse is an excellent starting point.
Youtube offers a range of examples of examples of classrooms applications of 3D printers.
EdTech recently published a post with three suggested projects for classroom 3D printing.
Regardless of the exact applications, you have in mind for your school district or classroom; there is a growing wealth of resources and a shared community waiting for you.
3D printers for schools in 2026: what to decide before you buy
The article above lists what a 3D printer can do in each part of STEAM. The question for a principal or curriculum director now is less what a printer can print than where it sits, who supervises it, what material it melts and what the school has to do about the air in the room. Those questions decide whether 3D printers for schools stay in use for years or end up in a closet after a parent or inspector raises a concern.
Where classroom models come from
The original points teachers to a National Institutes of Health site of printable models. That site has moved. The old address, 3dprint.nih.gov, now forwards to NIH 3D, which describes itself as an open, community-driven portal for bioscientific and medical models for 3D printing and interactive visualization. Its footer names the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as the operator, and it says its searchable library holds more than 12,000 digital 3D assets. The page does not describe classroom resources as such, so teachers should preview a model and its licence before building a lesson on it. The original’s other ideas, such as molecular models and mathematical shapes, still describe sound uses, and the same caution about checking a model before printing applies to them.
What the safety research found
The most useful recent evidence comes from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. In a 2025 article in the Journal of School Health, Jessica Li and Eric Glassford summarized evaluations of 3D printer use at 11 university and K-12 sites, including a middle school classroom and a high school classroom. The evaluators used area air sampling for volatile organic compounds and particle counters for ultrafine particles. Both were detected while printers ran. At 6 of the 11 locations, particle increases followed printer start-ups or malfunctions, and most of the printing in the sites listed used polylactic acid filament, called PLA, with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, called ABS, at some sites.
The same article reports what the sites were doing. Of the 11 locations, 5 had a ventilation or enclosure control meant to handle printer emissions, and 6 had fewer than six air changes per hour in the printing space. At 8 of 11 locations, safety data sheets for the print materials were not available when requested, and students or workers remained in the printing area during printing at every location, working or watching near the printers. The measured concentrations of volatile organic compounds were orders of magnitude lower than the relevant occupational exposure limits. The authors note, however, that area samples cannot be compared directly with those limits and that long-term health effects are hard to assess because the technology has a short history. This is a summary of 11 evaluations, not a trial of health outcomes, so it supports careful setup and does not support alarm.
What one state requires
The Washington State Department of Health publishes guidance on 3D printers in schools. It states that the State Board of Health rule for primary and secondary schools, WAC 246-366-080, requires local mechanical exhaust ventilation for 3D printers. The preferred option is an enclosure that exhausts directly outside the building, and HEPA and charcoal filters, while they reduce hazards, are described as not sufficient under the code. The page notes that PLA typically has the lowest particle emission rate, advises at least six air changes per hour in rooms with multiple printers, and advises placing printers away from student desks and near a fire extinguisher. It also recommends keeping the enclosure closed for 20 minutes after printing and cleaning with a wet towel or HEPA vacuum instead of sweeping. The page shows no date. These are Washington’s requirements, so a school elsewhere should check its own state and district rules before copying them.
Decisions to make before the first print
- Choose the room before the printer. Check air changes per hour and whether an enclosure can exhaust outdoors, with the facilities lead.
- Set a default material. Washington’s guidance points to PLA as the filament with the lowest particle emissions, and a school can require approval before anyone loads another filament.
- Plan supervision so students are not standing beside a running printer. The NIOSH sites show that watching a print is the common habit, and start-ups and failures are when particles rise.
- Keep safety data sheets on file. Most sites in the NIOSH summary could not produce them.
- Tie each printer to a lesson. The strongest case for 3D printers for schools is the original’s: a student designs, prints, tests and revises.
Related reading on edCircuit includes the STEM education guide, and the lab safety guide covers ventilation and supervision habits that carry over to a makerspace.
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