Blender is one of the most powerful applications of the Open Source community. It's used for various things such as modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications, including games.
If you are new to it or would like to take a serious look at it for a project you may have, then Blender Basics should be of interest to you. It is available as a full book download or choose the chapters you want. You are free to use it in your educational setup.
If you want to be convinced of what you can do with Blender, take a look at these videos.
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