This week, we’re helping elementary classes in North Carolina and Louisiana get materials to allow them to design and build whatever they imagine, and to explore and understand fractions. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help by sharing or supporting our featured projects.
The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science and math projects for red-state public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
Since yesterday was my birthday, I’m taking some liberty here and putting up two larger-than-usual projects that have no matching funds and will likely take us a while to polish off. They both expire late in November, so we have enough time to be successful, but I may be leaving nomandates with nothing much to do next week. 😉 These projects come to us from our friend Eastern Bluebird, who is personally devoted to education and keeps an eye on DonorsChoose for worthy projects.
We’ll start with this first grade in rural North Carolina, a bit inland from Croatan National Forest.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students more STEM resources to use in class during small group time and morning arrival.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Northwest Elementary School, Kinston, North Carolina
Total: $337.11
Still Needed: $317.11 $213.58
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Perry:
My Students: I teach a wonderful and sweet group of first-grade students at a Title I school. My students have a variety of learning needs that require differentiation and engaging activities. Each child comes from a different background, but most come from a low-social, economical environment.
Funding this project will help provide better more engaging opportunities for my students.
My students have a variety of likes and interests. This project will help them to explore those interests through more interactive materials and resources.
My Project: My students love building, creating and using their imagination. My students will be able to work together to build different items with the construction building play sticks, STEM flakes, wooden stacking blocks, snap cubes, and the magnetic tile building blocks.
These wonderful STEM items will make our classroom more STEM driven and give my students a wonderful opportunity to work together to create and use their imagination.
In our particular curriculum, we also have units on magnets and geometric shapes which could also use these resources to incorporate into them to make these science and math units more interactive and engaging for our students.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
And then, we have this fourth grade in Louisiana, in a town northwest of Lafayette. In suggesting this project, Eastern Bluebird mentioned having helped out another teacher at the school with some books. In thanking her, that teacher told her, in part: I told the students about you, and they were flabbergasted. People rarely do nice things for them, and they were just amazed that some stranger would care enough to be so giving. You’re teaching them way more than what is in the books you’re sharing.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students mathematical manipulatives to aid and enhance learning and understanding of critical skills and concepts!
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Highland Elementary School, Eunice, Louisiana
Total: $457.38
Still Needed: $369.67 $271.14
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Hoychick:
My Students: 97% of my students are impoverished. Life is not easy for these 4th-graders. Outside of school, they face problems and situations that no child should ever have to. The things they deal with daily are unimaginable and heartbreaking.
They are such precious and innocent children.
Growing up this way has also made them strong-willed and strong-minded! My mission is to educate these wills and minds in such a way that they are equipped with anything and everything they need to have bright futures.
My Project: When students manipulate objects, they are taking the necessary first steps toward building understanding and internalizing math processes and procedures. For example, when comparing fractions, the use of fraction circles helps students visually compare fractions and understand equivalency. Having visual aids such as math concept and strategy posters as references further enhance understanding and instill information learned on a concrete level. When teaching about time, geared clocks allow the student to manipulate his own, which also enhances learning and understanding.
The use of manipulatives and visual aids help students hone their mathematical thinking skills.
Having these resources available significantly increases levels of mastering crucial math skills. Thank you for contributing to my students’ success!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Both projects from last week were completed, with a huge assist from our readers!
Microbiology and Chemistry of Our Environment will bring lab supplies to Ms. G’s high school class, for a project culturing microbes from the many natural environments found near them on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. The school and town are majority Native Alaskan, and in fact the town, Hydaburg, was named for the Haida people.
Ms. G writes: Thank you so much for donating to my project! My students will benefit greatly from this place-based, real world and relevant project. They will learn how they can be a part of creating healthy local environments for the fish, deer, and other organisms they rely on for food. We greatly appreciate you!
Mr. Smith’s Alabama high school biology class, meanwhile, will soon have preserved small creatures such as grasshoppers, fish, and frogs to dissect. The project was Internal Investigation, and it was completed late in the week so, at this writing, Mr. Smith hasn’t found out yet.
For now, I’ll just include the short note he wrote to one of our donors: Thank you for your continuous support of the students who so desperately need these hands on materials to reach their full learning potential.
Our Dollars at Work
Back in July, we helped Mrs. Huggins with an ambitious project for her North Carolina 3rd-5th graders — each student would design and build a solar-powered device of their choice, using the parts in the multi-project kits we’ve sent. The project was Solar Energy Engineers. (More photos at the link.)
My students and I would like to thank you once again for your generous donation! Although our STEM camp is not projected to begin in November, some of my potential students had an opportunity to peruse through the resources for this project. Having access to these resources will definitely empower our students to be ready for the 21st century. Students need not only be exposed to written knowledge but hands-on experiences as well. Like the famous proverb, "Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand." Therefore, it is important to expose students to multiple opportunities to experience things first-hand through exploration!
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project combats the anti-science push in conservative America by funding science and math projects in red-state classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, a crowdfunding charity founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau.
Every Sunday, we focus on helping to fund science or math projects, preferably in neighborhood public schools where the overwhelming majority of students come from low-income households. We welcome everyone who supports public school education — no money is required!
Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects — our series total is 781! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.