When high school senior Noah Sullivan heard that healthcare workers were short on protective gear during the COVID-19 pandemic, he knew he wanted to help.

Noah’s mother, Alexandra Sullivan, is the principal of Deer Hill Elementary in Massachusetts, where she has access to two MakerBot Replicator Plus Educators Edition 3D printers. The Sullivans have printed more than 80 straps to hold face shields in place, and now they’re working on a plan to mass-produce face masks.

“It shows us how much fundamental good this technology can do when people leverage it in a collaborative way,” Noah says.

In K–12 districts nationwide, students and teachers have been leveraging their makerspace resources in support of the wider community. Before COVID-19, they were printing prosthetic hands and other limbs for those in need. More recently they’ve turned to protective gear in support of frontline medical workers. All of these efforts suggest a new model in which K–12 technology resources can be used to forge ties to the world outside of the classroom.

“We are in a space where schools are working much more closely with their communities, where empathy becomes a driving force for STEM projects,” says Johannes Strobel, a professor of STEM education research at the University of Missouri. “Typically, students’ work is seen by the teacher and maybe in a parent showcase. It’s not something that the community sees and can use. Now we have a learning project that actually connects back to the community.”