This week, we have a North Carolina 2nd grade teacher wanting to give her incoming class a summer boost, and a Florida preschool teacher trying to get her students an engaging hands-on experience. 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.
Here is DonorsChoose.org’s message about the current situation:
Coronavirus Update: Thank you for your continued support of teachers; they need us right now! We are working closely with teachers and will fulfill all funded projects on the timeline that is best for their school.
We made good progress on this project last week!
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students instructional materials that they missed at the end of first grade!
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Northwest Elementary School, Kinston, North Carolina
Total: $292.47
Still Needed: $198.94 Completed, thank you! Please see long-term project below.
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Stroud:
My Students: Hello! I am a second grade teacher at a Title I school in Eastern North Carolina. The upcoming second grade students have missed over 9 weeks of face-to-face instruction from their first grade teachers due to school closing on March 15th. They are currently learning virtually at home. The students who have internet access are learning through an iPad app called SeeSaw.
I am hoping to provide my future second grade students with first grade instructional materials that they missed due to the closing of school.
My Project: I want to be able to provide my upcoming second graders with the resources that they will need to have a successful school year. The math, reading, social studies, and science resources that will be purchased will target objectives taught at the end of first grade.
With the uncertainty of how the beginning of the next school year will look, the materials will be used for online learning.
By donating to this project, you will provide my students with opportunities to learn the objectives that they missed at the end of their first grade year.
The math resources will include materials focused on telling time, identifying money, and partitioning shapes. Reading resources will include materials focused on poetry and point of view. Science resources will be related to plants and animals and their needs. Lastly, the social studies materials that will focus on digital citizenship.
[Mrs. Stroud is requesting scrip to buy resources from Teachers Pay Teachers, an online marketplace where teachers can provide their original teaching ideas and materials to one another. I had not heard of them before this pandemic, but requests for their gift certificates are certainly the number one request I’ve been seeing for distance learning projects on DonorsChoose.]
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
↪️ We made good progress on last week’s long-term project too, but for whatever reason, it was withdrawn by the teacher during the week. This means that, if you donated to it, you should see a credit for that amount in your DonorsChoose account — the amount will show beside your name and avatar in the upper right corner of screens there, and when you make your next donation, it will automatically use that credit before charging anything to another source of payment.
For our new longer-term project, let’s help this Florida pre-K teacher provide each student at home with a kit that allows them to build a fanciful “cottage” and sprout a tiny real garden in its yard.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students their very own garden kit to create, grow, and experience!
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Hogan-Spring Glen Elementary School, Jacksonville, Florida
Total: $393.29
Still Needed: $318.29 $229.76
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Bopst:
My Students: Our classroom was a vibrant, exciting location for my students to explore and investigate as they mastered the VPK curriculum. Every day 20 smiling faces would enter the room curious and eager to discover what fun and learning would be available and waiting for them that day. Our 'family' cooperated and shared and investigated together so that each child felt supported and capable in learning.
In the classroom, I would provide many hands-on, real life, close up experiences to encourage a love for learning and an interest in the wonders of the world around us.
We are a Title I school and many students come from hard working families that struggle financially. Our classroom environment and activities that were available to each child every day provided an opportunity for equal access and understanding of care and respect for our materials and especially for each other.
My Project: There have been many challenges during this time of virtual school. One of the most disappointing has been the inability for my VPK students to participate in the many hands on opportunities that would have been provided. Although they have watched experiments on the computer, they lost the opportunity to engage first hand in the wonder and excitement of the world around them.
It is my goal to amaze and excite my students by providing them materials for experiments they can complete in their homes.
We have watched caterpillars become butterflies. We have watched beans sprout. We have watched carrot tops grow leaves. With this project, we will do!
[Here’s what Mrs. Bopst wants to give each child: Rainbow Cottage Kids Garden Kit – Rainbow Cottage Model Kit for Kids with Indoor Garden, Includes Flower and Vegetable Seeds, Peat Pellets, Activity Guide, and More]
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
DonorsChoose.org has set up a special coronavirus relief effort to help teachers in highest poverty areas send educational materials to students who are trying to learn from home. This effort isn’t limited to math and science projects, but we thought our readers might be interested in hearing about it. The fund has raised over $11.7 million so far. (See this update from mid-May about how the funds are being used — nice photos of teachers and kids getting their packages!)
Urgent Coronavirus Response: Help teachers get key resources to students at home.
Coronavirus has closed schools across the country. Right now, teachers need to get supplies in the hands of students at home to keep them learning, especially in our country’s highest-need communities. We surveyed over 3,000 teachers, and 97% of them are worried that school closings are going to hurt their students’ learning.
Teachers need your help now to get the technology, basic supplies, and hands-on activities they need to keep kids learning at home.
Here’s how it will work:
- You make a donation of any amount to Keep Kids Learning.
- All donations go to teachers at schools serving low-income communities where most students are eligible for free and reduced lunch.
- Teachers select the materials they need and distribute them to students at home.
DonorsChoose, the classroom funding site for public school teachers, is committed to getting teachers what they need to give every student a great education. Usually, funded supplies are shipped directly to classrooms in need. With schools closed, this new pilot program for delivering on our mission empowers teachers to get supplies directly to students at home.
We’ve automatically waived our 15% optional donation for this program, so 100% of your gift will go to supplies for teachers and their students.
DonorsChoose.org is a 501(c)3 nonprofit with Charity Navigator's highest 4-star rating. Visit our help center for details on how Keep Kids Learning works, or for more information on how we're responding to teachers impacted by coronavirus.
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Our Dollars at Work
Back to the annals of history for this one: way back in summer 2017, Mr. Rapisarda wanted his Mississippi high school science students to be able to take advantage of space available to them in a community garden. This project brought the class seeds, grow lights, and other supplies needed to start seedlings for their garden plot. The project was Gifts for a Garden: Help the RFP! (“RFP” is the Rosedale Freedom Project, the organization sponsoring the student group as an after-school/summer gardening club.) More photos at the link.
"What is that?!" cried my 3rd period class, as a massive box containing our new grow lamp arrived. The arrival of our new garden supplies quickly spread throughout the entire school, and soon everyone was talking about it.
Since the beginning of April, my students and I have enjoyed designing, planting, and harvesting from our freedom garden. We quickly went to work on setting up, planting beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, peppers, and a pollination station. Our seedlings incubated underneath our grow lamp, and students watched in amazement as tiny, green seedlings sprouted out of brown dirt. Throughout the summer, students learned how to differentiate between weeds and "good" seedlings, we discussed parasitism of plants and we learned about the importance of pollinators in agricultural and natural spaces. We celebrated with a harvest at the end of the summer, where we ate and gave away all of the produce that we grew!
Students will continue to come to the Freedom Garden throughout the year as part of "garden club", and they will continue to maintain and expand the plots that were planted. We have hopes to expand our garden to allow more students the opportunity to learn.
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 831! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.