A Miller Middle School Spanish student paints fine details onto a laser-cut skeleton figure for Día de los Muertos at Durango School District's Impact Career Innovation Center on Oct. 27.
Miller Middle School (MMS) Spanish students took learning on the move this week, visiting Durango School District’s Impact Career Innovation Center to blend cultural traditions with modern technology.
On Oct. 27 and Oct. 28, MMS Spanish Teacher Dory Daniel led her morning classes on the field trip to explore the traditions of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), providing students with an academic look at how family history, community traditions, and folk art intertwine in Spanish-speaking cultures.
Technology meets tradition
A Miller Middle School Spanish student assembles parts for a Día de los Muertos art project in the Impact Career Innovation Center on Oct. 27.
Students chose among a variety of interactive projects designed to commemorate the holiday, which honors deceased family members and ancestors:
- Donning ClassVR headsets to explore 360-degree, immersive scenes of traditional Day of the Dead celebrations
- Preparing digital designs in Canva before sending files to laser cutters to fabricate papel picado patterns and luminarias
- Operating ChompSaw cardboard cutters to build custom picture frames designed for family memorial photos
- Crafting classic skull, skeleton, and flag displays that reflect historic Mexican folk art styles
A middle school student feeds paper into a Cricut machine to prepare materials for a Día de los Muertos project on Oct. 27.
High school leaders guide hands-on design
To bring their ideas to life, MMS students collaborated with high school Makerspace Ambassadors who guided workflow and helped troubleshoot creative designs.
The student leadership team included 10th grader Fisher Boulden and 11th grader Lyla Manansala from Durango Big Picture High School, alongside Durango High School 11th grader Austin Whitman. Together, they partnered with younger peers across the facility’s upstairs Makerspace and downstairs Tech Collaboration rooms.
Austin Whitman, an 11th grader at Durango High School and a Makerspace Ambassador, helps oversee Miller Middle School Spanish students working on 3D Día de los Muertos projects at the Impact Career Innovation Center.
“I'm helping the students with laser engraving their skull projects, and I also helped cut out the blank templates for the picture frames,” said Whitman, who was stationed in the Makerspace to support students using its Glowforge laser engravers.
Students also had access to ChompSaw cardboard cutters, 3Doodler 3D printing pens, and various crafting supplies as they created their projects, plus support from the Ignite Bus’s ed tech facilitators.
“Some of these tools came from the Impact Center,” said Whitman, “and some of them came from our amazing Ignite bus, which goes around town helping schools facilitate STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) learning.”
The creative session brought DSD’s Portrait of a Graduate competencies to life, fostering agile thinking, empathetic collaboration, and creative problem-solving across multiple grade levels.
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School Storytellers: Thank you to District Technology and Media Support Specialist Nathan Van Arsdale, who provided the details and media for this story.
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