3D Print Fun Camp is a Toronto-based non-profit looking to link STEM education projects with literacy.  They have an opportunity to get some funding from CST – the Canadian Scholarship Trust Plan – and the funding is awarded based on voting from the community.

What’s powerful about 3D Print Fun Camp project is that the pilot program will be documented and then replicated so that other communities worldwide can utilize the curriculum that has been tested in a real-life learning situation.  Since the pilot program will be launched at a space next door to a library, incorporating reading will be, well, child’s play.  To start, the participating students will visit the library where books on STEM topics will have been pre-selected.  The students can then select a topic that interests them such as the Solar System, aquaculture, or robotics.

The next step leverages kids’ natural curiosity, inventiveness, imaginations, and storytelling to re-imagine the topic they learned about in the book.  Perhaps they can put themselves into the place of an inventor they discover or like so many kids that have imaginary friends, they can create entire dialogues with an Einstein or Madame Curie.

Choosing some element of the STEM story, a 3D Print will then be created.  Documenting the students’ internal stories is the final step.  Through writing, drawing, and acting out plays, the stories can come to life – using, of course, their 3D Printed figures as props.  With sufficient funding, perhaps they could even be recorded.

The Canadian Scholarship Trust has been around since the 1960’s and the CST Inspired Minds Learning Project is a competitive program.  3D Print Story Book Fun Camp in one of the competitors and they just need votes – not any financial support – from 3D Printing enthusiasts.  To learn more about the program and cast your vote, go to the CST Learning Project page.