Science education is most effective when it provides authentic experiences that reflect professional practices and approaches that address issues relevant to students' lives and communities. Such educational experiences are becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and can be enhanced using digital fabrication. Digital fabrication is the process of designing objects for the purpose of fabricating with machinery such as 3D-printers, laser cutters, and Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines. Historically, these types of tools have been exceptionally costly and difficult to access; however, recent advancements in technological design have been accompanied by decreasing prices. In this review, we first establish the historical and theoretical foundations that support the use of digital fabrication as a pedagogical strategy to enhance learning. We specifically chose to focus attention on 3D-printing because this type of technology is becoming increasingly advanced, affordable, and widely available. We systematically reviewed the last 20 years of literature that characterized the use of 3D-printing in biological education, only finding a total of 13 articles that attempted to investigate the benefits for student learning. While the pedagogical value of student-driven creation is strongly supported by educational literature, it was challenging to make broad claims about student learning in relation to using or creating 3D-printed models in the context of biological education. Additional studies are needed to systematically investigate the impact of student-driven creation at the intersection of biology and engineering or computer science education.

中文翻译：

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探索 3D 打印在生物教育中的潜力：文献回顾

科学教育在提供真实体验时最有效，这些体验反映了解决与学生生活和社区相关的问题的专业实践和方法。这种教育体验正变得越来越跨学科，并且可以使用数字制造来增强。数字制造是设计对象的过程，目的是使用 3D 打印机、激光切割机和计算机数控 (CNC) 机器等机器进行制造。从历史上看，这些类型的工具非常昂贵且难以获得。然而，最近技术设计的进步伴随着价格的下降。在这篇综述中，我们首先建立了支持使用数字制造作为加强学习的教学策略的历史和理论基础。我们特别选择将注意力集中在 3D 打印上，因为这种技术正变得越来越先进、价格合理且广泛可用。我们系统地回顾了过去 20 年以 3D 打印在生物教育中的应用为特征的文献，仅找到了 13 篇试图调查学生学习益处的文章。虽然以学生为导向的创作的教学价值得到了教育文献的大力支持，但在生物教育的背景下，对与使用或创建 3D 打印模型相关的学生学习做出广泛的声明是具有挑战性的。需要额外的研究来系统地调查学生驱动的创造在生物学和工程或计算机科学教育的交叉点上的影响。