New Mexico State Trains K-12 Teachers to Bring 3D Printing to Classrooms

Closing the Skills Gap

The DREAM Center at New Mexico State University held its third Additive Manufacturing Personal Development workshop this summer, bringing K-12 teachers from southern New Mexico onto campus for hands-on training. The goal is straightforward: the industry is growing faster than the workforce that knows how to run the machines.

Other programs are chasing the same gap. UltiMaker's MakerBot Nebula platform ships with AI-driven classroom courses and a grant-finding tool to help schools fund equipment. America Makes funneled $322 million over seven years into workforce development through the Air Force Research Laboratory. The DREAM workshop takes a more direct approach: teach the teacher, and let them take it from there.

What Teachers Actually Learn

The multi-day hybrid session at NMSU's Aggie Innovation Space covered the full workflow: modeling a part, slicing it, and operating a printer. Tajkirah Wallace, a special education high school teacher at Chaparral High School, said the software side was the hardest.

'We've learned how to set things up within the programs and get them ready to print. To me, that's probably the most important part. Because you can work a printer, but I feel like working the printers is the easier part. But getting what you're trying to do and programming all that, the software, that's the harder part.'

Mat Martins, program manager for the DREAM Center, described the workshop as a way to demystify manufacturing for educators who may never have touched a 3D printer before. 'This leads to learning more about STEM, finding creative ways of interacting with 3D objects and designs, and reimagining what it takes to make the world of material products around them.'

Vishal Kapoor, a high school math teacher at Desert Pride Academy, runs a drone class that has already attracted 45 students in a space designed for ten. He said word gets around quickly when new technology is involved. 'They request my classes. My colleagues tell me all the time, Why are you doing all this crazy extra stuff? They are going and changing my roster.'

A Pipeline That Starts Early

The DREAM Center launched in 2024 with National Science Foundation funding. It is now entering its third year of summer workshops, and the model is similar to programs elsewhere: reach students before they make career decisions, not after. The difference is that this one does not rely on district budgets alone. State and federal support, plus partnerships with local industry, cover the hardware and the training time.

Additive manufacturing will not scale without operators. Initiatives like AMPD, MakerBot Nebula, and the America Makes workforce programs all point to the same bottleneck. NMSU's effort is small in scope but consistent: every teacher who leaves the workshop sends a signal back to their school that 3D printing is not a distraction, it is preparation.