Welcome to The Inoculation Project, a weekly effort to help fund science and math projects in red-state schools categorized as “highest poverty.” This week, we’re helping elementary school students with assistance from matching offers.
As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, an organization founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. If you’re short on cash, don’t worry — we’re glad to see you anyway! And your tips, recs, shares, and so on are a good free way to help, by helping us get on the rec list and catch more eyes.
Hope you like today’s featured projects!
THIS WEEK’S PROJECT
Resources: My students need a set of Lego Wedo 2.0 robots in order to further their science and technology inquiry.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Wolf Meadow Elementary School, Concord, North Carolina
Total: $382.42 (matching offer)
Still Needed: $292.42 Completed! Please consider other 2 projects below.
Expires: April 14, 2017
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Titley:
My Students: My students walk into Inquiry Lab, smiles on their face, because the robots are out to play with. I hear questions like, "Do we get to play with them?, What can we build?, Is this really what we are doing today?" All the while, their eyes are getting bigger and bigger with excitement because they don't get to play with robots at home or in their other classes.
At my school, students have access to technology but many do not have the resources at home.
All students receive free breakfast and lunch. Many students receive a backpack full of food on the weekends. Some also go clothes shopping periodically throughout the year.
With all of these obstacles in their way, my students still love to be at school and love to come to my class. They want to explore, create, and invent things. Inquiry Lab allows them to do all of those things.
My Project: My students will be using the Lego WeDo 2.0 robots to explore different science topics by making robots based on a science topic and then researching that topic after they build the robot. One of the robots they can create is an earthquake simulator. After they build the simulator, they will research the causes of earthquakes and how much force it takes to knock down different sizes of buildings.
Most of my students have probably used legos at home, but very few have never transformed their creations into robots.
They will see that their lego creations can be related to science topics all around them. This lego kit will also help a group of students work together.
I will put them in small groups and they will have to assign themselves roles in the group, so that no one is doing all the work by themselves. They will also break up the research together. At the end of this project, the students will grade how well they did in their groups as well as their groups members, using a number scale.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
THIS WEEK’S PROJECT
Resources: My students need magnet building pieces to build things they see in the environment.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Kate Bond Elementary School, Memphis, Tennessee
Total: $526.42 (matching offer)
Still Needed: $311.42 Completed! Please see long-term project below.
Expires: May 3, 2017
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. B.:
My Students: I teach inspiring English language learners. The students know that when they are in my room they get my attention, care, and concern.
I teach in a large, diverse, K-5 school, which receives Title I funding.
100% of the children are eligible for free breakfast and lunch. These might be their only meals of the day. The students come to school eager to learn from various living situations such as single parents, foster homes, homeless shelters, or extended family living. I am dedicated to meeting their needs daily, along with building their self-esteem and confidence.
My Project: My students are fascinated by constructing things that they see in their environment. They need to get up and move within their day; they need to work with different materials to express themselves. I have a class full of eager learners. These magnets will be used as a sensory break when my students need a break from reading or writing. They will construct whatever they dream up or read about and the magnets help the structures stay in place. These will also help build fine motor skills. The students will learn to work together and accept each other's ideas and plans for construction. They will strengthen math, logic and science skills while building and having fun. These exciting resources are certainly not in our cash strapped district's budget.
It is important for me to create a safe environment where every one's curiosity and risk taking are valued.
Help me set the children up for success, not failure. Can you help impact my current and future students' lives by donating to this project? Your donation can have rippling effects in the world to make it a better place. They are my students, but our future.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
The matching offers help us to complete projects much more quickly than usual, so I’ve added a long-term project just in case!
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: My students need science journals for daily practice and review, ready to go centers, and science station materials for hands on exploration!
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Longview Elementary School, Hickory, North Carolina
Total: $624.15 (matching offer)
Still Needed: $624.15 $389.74
Expires: June 22, 2017
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Snider:
My Students: I work for a Title One school with a 100% free lunch rate. My students are 33% African American, 33% English Language Learners, and 34% white, Asian, and other diverse populations.
We are in a small inner city system and many of my students come to school with few supplies to begin learning.
These students are strong, capable learners who need to be able to be competitive with their peers for 21st century jobs in the future. Sometimes my students have been overlooked or don't try due to a fear of failure in not having what other students have access to. They give up easier on themselves because they don't feel they are as good as their same aged peers due to a lack of experiences and opportunities in the technological world.
My Project: Scientists need materials to experiment with and journals to keep their notes of discovery. With limited copies per month, science typically goes on the back burner or we have limited use of shared materials. I am requesting these hands on science activities, ready to be used science kits, reusable supplies, and daily science practice journals, students can organize data and keep their experiments close at hand for daily review of skills. Scientists must be able to witness changes and be able to use multiple materials in more than one setting. I am requesting science file folder games, review station materials, journals with science prompts and experiments for daily practice and review, and a complete set of science centers that are ready to be used with no extra materials needed!
Students will be able to interact with hands on manipulatives especially for our most important units-animals, environmental changes that affect plants and animals, and reading resources for non-fiction text review.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
We helped to fund several projects last week! Our main project was completed with the help of a generous donor matching our donations. For the project STEMRobotics | STEM Education with a Robotics Implementation, high school students in Arizona will receive a HEXBUG VEX IQ Robotics Construction Set to learn to build and program robots.
Thank you note from Mr. Mehta:
Thank you so much for your support of my robotics program. My students will be so excited to learn that they will have HEXBUG VEX IQ Robotics Construction Set and be able to build and program new robots. My robotics club have advanced members who would love to assemble this kit and create innovative robots out of the components provided. They will also have the chance to assume leadership role and teach the same to the incoming members of the club. Your contribution to the project has given them the opportunity to excercise their latent potential and leadership traits. Thank you once again for supporting my students!
With gratitude,
Mr. Mehta
With the assistance of another matching donor, we also helped to fund Dot and Dash Go To School!, which will provide programmable robots to elementary school students in Texas. Here’s Teacher Adams’ thank you note:
Thank you so very much for funding this project! I cannot wait to see the kids at work with these robots! Thank you for caring about education, and about my students! You have opened a door for them into the world of technology! You are amazing! I am beyond thrilled and grateful!
With gratitude,
Teacher Adams
Finally, we and one other donor fully funded another project last week, but the teacher then cancelled the project. For those who don’t know what happens next, donors are able to redirect their funds to another teacher’s project.
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project is an effort to combat the anti-science push in conservative America by providing direct funding to science and math projects in traditionally red-state classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, an organization founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. DonorsChoose allows you to contribute to specific, vetted projects in public schools, resulting in tremendous and immediate impacts from small-dollar donations. Here’s an introductory video about DonorsChoose featuring Michelle Obama and Stephen Colbert.
Each Sunday morning, we focus on helping to fund one or two science and math projects in traditionally red-state schools, preferably in highest-poverty districts. We welcome everyone who shares our interest — no money is required! Your tip, rec, republish, comment, or share helps bring us more eyes, and besides, we like the company of others who love kids and education. Feel free to post a link or video, or just tell us how your weather is!
Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects — our series total is 556! The success-list diary now also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose, formerly found in this space.