This week, we’re celebrating Women’s History month by supporting a girls’ science and math club at a South Carolina middle school with supplies to create a pollinator garden. We’re also helping some Mississippi high school students to safely study chemical reactions. 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.
Our main project will help a GEMS Club — Girls Excelling in Math and Science — at a middle school in South Carolina to create a pollinator garden:
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students everything they need to create a pollinator garden at our school. We will use our greenhouse to support and maintain pollinators by supplying food in the form of pollen and nectar.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Colleton County Middle School, Walterboro, South Carolina
Total: $474.21
Still Needed: $311.15 Completed, thank you! Please consider long-term project below.
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Heinemann:
My Students: I teach at a middle school in a 90% poverty district with a high minority and special education population. I am the adult sponsor of the GEMS Club - Girls Excelling in Math and science. This club is made of girls in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade with a high number of our girls being recruited from the special education classes (80%).
Working with the wonderful girls in this club over the last year has demonstrated to me that it is not because they lack the ability or intelligence, just the opportunities .
A school garden provides a unique opportunity for students and teachers to engage with an outdoor space in the context of school.
My Project: Pollinator gardens are one of the most flexible, cost-effective and timeless educational tools available. These gardens provide clear, real life examples of the interdependent nature of our food ecosystem, and the valuable services that pollinators – yes, even insects – provide to human society. Approximately 75 percent of all food crops grown in the United States depend on pollinator animals such as insects, reptiles, birds and some mammals.
Our GEMS club members are excited to use our greenhouse and plant herbs, vegetables and local wildflowers.
They can see our garden come to life. Not only do they get to help our school have healthier, tastier lunches, but they will get to help our endangered pollinators as we. Pollinator gardens support and maintain pollinators by supplying food in the form of pollen and nectar that will ensure that these important animals stay in the area to keep pollinating our crops for continued fruit and vegetable production. Our local bees are endangered and we will Bee Houses to attract them as well as planting local native plants.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Eastern Bluebird recommended our long-term project, which will provide safety glasses and gloves for use while studying chemical reactions at a Mississippi high school:
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students consumable lab supplies, so that I can provide my students safety and help prevent or eliminate hazards while using chemicals.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Holmes County Central High School, Lexington, Mississippi
Total: $671.58
Still Needed: $482.93 $218.11
Teacher’s Comments from Dr. SITRAM:
My Students: My students are creative, inquisitive and always ready to learn something new! They absolutely love hands-on, active, engaging projects and challenges that allow them to think outside the box to find solutions! They come to school each day ready to try new things and take brave chances in order to grow both personally and academically. They ask me if we are blowing out something every other day...….that's what they see learning Chemistry as.
Hands-on activities motivates every student in my class, and they demonstrate an intense level of curiosity in science.
Each child in my classroom absolutely loves learning chemistry. I incorporate a variety of learning strategies, labs, group work, and learning options to ensure that each student's needs are met, right where they are! They are truly an incredible group, and I am so lucky and thankful to have a group of learners that are excited and ready to learn each year!
Our school is located in Rural Mississippi Delta region, surrounded by Agricultural farms and 98% of my students are on Free and reduced lunch, 95% of them come from single parent families.
My Project: Very soon I will be teaching Types of Chemical Reactions and my students will need to be in the Chemistry lab. We know chemical laboratory classes include hands-on, inquiry-based investigations. Most of the laboratory activities involve the use of chemicals or equipment that may pose a health or safety danger to students and teachers if not handled properly. To ensure a safe and healthy environment in our classrooms and laboratories, student should use lab safety equipment.
Gloves and Safety goggles are consumables and need to be replaced periodically and when needed.
Before conducting any experiment, I access the hazards related to the work, including; what are the worst possible things that could go wrong, how would we deal with them, and what are the prudent practices, protective facilities and equipment necessary to minimize the risk of exposure to the hazards. As we know the basic things needed in lab are safety goggles and gloves which could prevent most of the hazards.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Last week, we completed two projects thanks to a huge assist from our donors. Here are the teachers’ thank you notes:
Calculators for Successful Students!
Thank you all for your support of my students. They all try so hard to learn the material and these calculators will help complete my classroom set. The calculators will be used to solve the complex equations my students face on a daily basis. Once thank you for for helping my students be successful in math.
With gratitude,
Mrs. Shirk
Creativity and Critical Thinking Through Engineering!
Thank you for your generosity. I am greatly thankful for people that care about our future. This will add to my students creativity and innovation in the class. We just started this endeavor with no supplies but I have done the best I can with what I can could buy.
With gratitude,
Ms. Castaneda
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 727! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.