Middle school teacher Nick Schuster had one day to return to his school to pack up materials to prepare for teaching remotely after his middle school closed its doors during the early days of the COVID-19 outreak.听He knew just what he needed to do.
Schuster,听a Master鈥檚 student in the CU Boulder Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity program and听a teacher in Adams 12 Five Star School District, packed up parts of the makerspace at听Rocky Top Middle School to create听a makeshift makerspace with a 3D printer听in his garage听and another printer听in students' home, where he and his students are making 3D-printed听masks for local health care workers.听Combined with district efforts, the school teams have听donated more than听1,300 mask for local health care workers. Recently, they have听focused their efforts on supplying听others on the frontlines, such as听postal workers and听police听departments in Thornton.听Schuster's听network has come out to support him and his class, too. One听friend donated $400 toward the cause providing the Thornton Police Department with 150 masks, and听another friend, an听electrical engineer, helped him听fix a malfunctioning circuit board on one of our printers.听
"It's been so amazing to see the community come together to support each other," he said.
As a graduate student and father of two, Schuster is used to the balancing act required to teach middle school while taking听graduate听courses. He said his Adams 12 graduate student听cohort and the faculty and staff in the听CU Boulder School of Education's BUENO Center for Multicultural Education formed听the support system he needed to get him through challenging times, including the recent impacts of COVID-19 disruptions and remote teaching. Schuster and his cohort are set to graduate this spring, and it's bittersweet to graduate amid commencement ceremony postponemnts and classes that have moved online. He said his professor, Deb Palmer has听been amazing at adapting听to the new learning environment by "seamlessly bridging us into online learning while keeping us comfortably challenged and learning." Even while he is busy leading his own remote听classes and the makerspace project, he finds听it uplifting to remain听virtually connected with his graduate school听classmates.听
"A huge unexpected positive that has come from this change in circumstances has been the support from the Adams 12/BUENO Center master's cohort," he said.听"We have all been through this amazing experience together over the last 2 and half听years and, in some ways, it feels like we have become a family of sorts. Knowing that I can lean on them for extra support is so important in times like these. I will miss seeing them every week once we graduate."
Watch this video about Nick's project, and
听