This week, we’re helping South Carolina middle school class take up worm composting, and a high school in Oklahoma resupply their science labs. 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, math, and literacy projects for public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
We have a new project today! Ms. Werner’s South Carolina middle school has a school garden project that all the students can potentially be involved in. She wants her special education students to have a chance to raise worms for composting.
There are 2x matching funds available from the Bezos Family Foundation: We’re helping more young people realize their potential by championing the science of learning and its application in everyday life.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students a complete worm farm so that they can learn hands on about decomposition and soil health.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Northwoods Middle School, Charleston, South Carolina
Total: $419.64 (2x matching funds from Bezos Family Foundation)
Still Needed: $369.64 $279.64 ($140 from us)
Project description by Ms. Werner: This project is to help our middle school students engage in hands on environmental science by funding a worm farm for our special education classroom and school. This interactive project will teach students about composting, sustainability and the vial role worms play in our ecosystem.
Our students have revitalized a school garden, where we are incorporating a sensory aspect as well and want to combine with a leadership class that is collecting compost for us.
Our students are curious, enthusiastic learners who thrive when given the opportunity to explore science through real world applications and hands on learning. Many come from diverse backgrounds and some have limited access to outdoor learning experiences. By bringing a worm farm into our classroom and school, we can provide them with a unique, hands-on way to learn about decomposition, soil health, and sustainable practices.
We are requesting funding for a classroom worm composting bin, red wiggler worms, bedding material, and educational resources to help students understand and manage the worm farm. Students will be responsible for feeding and maintaining the worm bin, tracking the decomposition process, and using the nutrient-rich compost to enhance our school garden.
They will learn valuable skills in observation, data collection, and problem-solving as they monitor the health of our worms and analyze their impact on soil quality.
Your generous contribution will provide our students with the resources they need to build and maintain a thriving worm farm. This project will cultivate a lifelong appreciation for environmental science and sustainability while empowering students to take action in their community. Every donation, big or small, will make a difference in helping us bring science to life!
Thank you for supporting hands-on learning and helping our students dig deep into science!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
This five-minute video is a time-lapse of a 100-day experiment comparing the progress of red wigglers, the composting worms being requested in this project, in three different types of “bedding” material (L-R): leaves, cardboard, and paper. Only water, grit (pulverized eggshells), and additional bedding were added.
As expected when we picked up this new long-term project last week, the matching funds were a last-week-only thing. On the other hand, we were able to put a considerable dent in the amount needed, and there is plenty of time to gather the rest.
Mr. Wooten teaches high school in a tiny rural town in eastern Oklahoma, located in the Cherokee Nation. He’s trying to update his biology and chemistry labs, and could use some supplies.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students a basic functioning biology and chemistry lab with selected items that will help improve the quality of education for my students by updating outdated/missing equipment and providing new hands-on activities.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; more than half of students from low‑income households.
Location: Gore High School, Gore, Oklahoma
Total: $890.87
Still Needed: $466.46 $322.64
Project description by Mr. Wooten: By selecting items that are able to be used across multiple classes. this will help improve effectiveness and efficiency, reaching the most students. These carefully chosen items will help provide a foundation for which we will be able to expand upon. The scales, goggles, flasks and other items were chosen for versatility, reusability, and efficiency.
Providing updated, safe, and engaging hands-on supplies and materials for my biology and chemistry students will enable them to safely perform numerous activities.
Our current lab is being updated, but with the budget dedicated towards facility and hard asset upgrades, additional hands-on supplies would be greatly appreciated.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
A VERY short one: an Erlenmeyer flask jack-o-lantern! (Such flasks are among the items requested.)
Our #1 project from last week was completed! We had the help of a matching grant for Teacher Appreciation Week, and a couple of what I often call “outside donors”. To be clear, I don’t know that other donors last Sunday did NOT read about the project on Daily Kos — sometimes they’ll obviously have a connection to the teacher, but that wasn’t the case here. So, if you read last week’s diary and took action, and just didn’t check in here, that’s perfectly fine, and THANK YOU for supporting public education!
Project #1, The Science Behind Climate Change and Our Environment: Mrs. Riviera is an elementary school librarian in the state of Washington. She wanted her library to have some award-winning books about climate and environment. (My bold):
She writes: Wow! This project was loved by 6 of the most kind hearted people! All over from Minnesota, Georgia, Iowa, Virginia and more...! Apparently this projected was featured on the Daily Kos too! I am so fortunate to have such an tribe of people supporting our Title 1 library. I became the librarian 3 years ago and inherited a very outdated library. It has become a passion of mine to fill our shelves with new books! The books in this project were carefully chosen to support our WA Towner nominees and also to discuss the importance of climate change and our environment. Earth day is a pretty big deal at our school so these books will foster so many conversations not just in the library but also with classroom teachers. Thank you for helping my dream come true for our library and students. I do not have the budget to get as many books as I would like, so it's donors like you that make it happen for us.
I would also like to share some news about a project we completed a couple of weeks ago. We saw the teacher’s note on DonorsChoose last week for I Can See the Math So Clearly Now, wherein we helped Mr. Stockbridge’s high school students in a rural town in southern Colorado with a light-sensor device. However, this week I received a lovely kosmail from Kaili Joy Gray, Daily Kos’s Chief Content Officer, to let us know that Mr. Stockbridge had reached out to Daily Kos itself to thank us. I will post his message in full here, minus his contact info, and I will be dropping him a line to take him up on his offer to send us updates and pictures!
Please pass my many, MANY thanks on to @belindaridgewood for her Inoculation Project article highlighting the project in my classroom!! I can't tell you how much it brightened my day to unexpectedly have my project for classroom equipment funded by Daily Kos readers giving through Donors Choose. That was an absolute delight. I told my students about it and I think it really registered with several of them that complete strangers think it is science and math education is important enough that they are donating to our classroom. (Do you know how hard/rare is for something like that to register with freshmen? :). Please thank @belindaridgewood for me and pass along my contact info to her. I'd be thrilled to share pictures and updates about how we are putting the equipment to use. My school is very low-performing but we have a crop of recent arrivals on the teaching staff (myself included) and we are busting our butts to change the culture at the school. We have a fighting chance and support from the outside gives us an even better chance. God Bless, Zack
| DonorsChoose has developed the designation Equity Focus Schools to describe some schools that submit projects. They meet two criteria: at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard measure for school economic need. You can read more at the link about their efforts to address the longstanding inequity in education. |
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project seeks to fund science, math, and literacy projects in public school classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose, 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 projects 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 1170! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.
