News story about Gridley Middle School in Tuscon, Arizona. They added classes late last year in which 6th and 8th graders design and model their own virtual reality projects. And, as you can see in the video, they’re using Blender.
Man, kids these days have so much cooler stuff than when I was in school.
Hmmm, I wonder if that was an Andrew Price iced donut?
Pretty funny that Ratheon is funding the program but the software is all FLOSS.
wow, that’s cool! 
Thanks for the link. Pretty cool to see the Blender game engine used this way 
Man, I wish I was a young teenager again
Cool, I wish they would have had computers back in 68’ (The Dark Ages). LOL
Kids seem to know how to use Blender. They don’t whine about the UI as much.
I’m wrapping up my undergrad thesis/creative project on this .
We were trying to show digital art was useful in exciting students about technology and getting them motivated toward STEM (mostly computer science) type thinking / degrees later on.
Blender was used in a 4th and 5th grade field trip setting where 80 4th and 5th graders came to the university over the course of 4 weeks.
Can something be produced with Blender and a basic lesson be taught using Blender in an hour? yes, but the time flies, and sometimes too much is put into the lessons.
Are students motivated to learn more about Blender? While most were interested, the results were inconclusive. However, from observation and feedback from professors and non-acclimated-students alike, they said the learning curve was extremely steep. The next steps to getting Blender into more classrooms is simplifying the UI to only show needed buttons for a certain task (aka: a toggle for advanced/basic mode) and more source files and documentation produced in a curriculum that teachers can pick up and use easily - documentation with the teacher in mind. [for basic mode reference, see the scratch user interface]
We currently have a good community with great resources in CGCookie, BlenderNation, BlenderGuru, CGSociety, and BlenderArtists forums , however there were very few Blender-Centric books directed toward the educator . Those high school geometry teachers, the video production professors, and the professionals who want to empower their students with a digital art tool that can be commercialized and tailored to suite the dreams and passions of students - That’s the next audience that could utilize Blender.
If Blender were explored as a digital playground for every school subject, this would not only increase the creative expressions and abilities of students, but also provide a way of showcasing ideas, inventing things, and collaborating together. It would also make learning through exploration super fun.
Tl;dr: Blender is missing in education -especially in the USA - so on the next education bandwagon, let’s pony up and show how fun and exciting it is to create and collaborate with Blender.
I’m so happy that more people are being exposed to blender. Painful lack of hiding UV seems on the model of Jupiter.