This week, we’re helping a North Carolina elementary class get some books, and an award-winning Mississippi high school science fair team get a hard drive to back up their work. 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.
Ms. Majewski teaches early elementary grades on the coast of North Carolina. She’s requesting a list of story books for which she has prepared coordinating STEM projects!
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students the STEM-themed books to strengthen the link between literacy and the STEM design process.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Belville Elementary School, Leland, North Carolina
Total: $211.65
Still Needed: $111.65 Completed, thank you! Please see next project.
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Majewski:
My Students: The students in my classroom are eager to learn using hands-on techniques and real-world situations to discover the importance of S.T.E.M. Without the proper materials to experience science, technology, engineering, and math, the students have a difficult time making these content areas relevant and real to them. Often, these areas of learning are not the focal points because of state testing, which leaves a majority of our students without a strong background to succeed in these fields in the future.
The goal of my classroom is to make science, technology, engineering, and math relevant and exciting for my students by giving them the opportunity to experience real-world, hands-on situations that encourage group collaboration and problem-solving.
These moments are critical to foster the understanding of these content-area subjects but to also encourage students to think outside of the box and find areas of interest that incorporate reading and math skills beyond those classes. The 21st-Century requires a sound knowledge of problem solving and collaboration, which can be applied and promoted in a STEM classroom program.
My Project: Without the proper materials to experience science, technology, engineering, and math within the classroom, the students have a difficult time making these content areas applicable and real to them. An effective STEM elective classroom needs the materials necessary for students to collaborate, problem solve, and to use their imaginations on a regular basis. Many materials are not ordinarily found within most classrooms because they involve learning that applies students' knowledge beyond that of the regular classroom setting.
The link between reading and S.T.E.M.
(science, technology, engineering, and math) is essential to foster the literacy skills beyond the regular classroom environment. Each specific book will provide the introduction and inspiration for a STEM-designed engineering project within the STEM Elective Classroom environment. Not only will reading skills be encouraged by using these as a starting point, but they will also be enhanced with the addition of a STEM-designed creation. It is hoped that the books will inspire students to find ideas in other texts in the future.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Flat Stanley is one of the books requested. A lot of us may remember it, since it was written in 1964, shockingly 56 years ago now. But the famous project in which Flat Stanley cutouts got mailed all over the world originated in 1995, and it’s still going on.
Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, has a population that is nearly 80% Black. About a third of the children under 18 live below the poverty line. Ms. Bender’s high school students, however, are not at all deterred by their circumstances from excelling in science fair competition. Ms. Bender is teaching remotely, and needs some extra technology to allow her to keep her class’s awesome work safely backed up.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students the opportunities to present their work publicly and to share all of their digital creations in a class newspaper and website.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Jim Hill High School, Jackson, Mississippi
Total: $356.80
Still Needed: $281.80 Completed — thank you! See you next week!
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Bender:
My Students: For eighteen of the last nineteen years of competition, my students, who are enrolled in advanced science classes, have received nearly 50% of all of the top positions in the regional science fair in our area of the state. In 2019, we earned a whopping 72% of all of the awards. Many of these same students have gone on to compete and win at the state level, and fifteen have advanced to the international competition.
This is a tremendous accomplishment considering that 100% of my students are underrepresented minority students who live below the poverty line.
We are currently virtual, and the ability to present their work has gone from face-to-face to digital.
My current peripheral equipment is inadequate to meet the demands required to continue the required level of technological instruction effectively. I am requesting assistance in purchasing the peripherals to accompany a new computer that will allow students to save large digital presentations and do face-to-face presentations when we are able to return to school.
My Project: Currently, my classes are 100% virtual. Student presentations and class artifacts are shared with me through Google Drive and my students' copies are saved on a school computer. My students do not have access to portable storage devices of their own to back up work
With the nature of technology, outages, and Wi-Fi issues around our city, I want to be able to assure both parents and students that I have a digital copy of their work in a secure location with a portable hard drive.
When the students return to face-to-face instruction, they will present the fruits of their labor publicly and through digital platforms.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Here are Ms. Bender and her students, with their impressive haul of medals and trophies from the 2018 Regional Science Fair at Jackson State University!
Both our projects from last week were completed, with a big assist from our readers!
Mrs. Hebert needed subscriptions to Scholastic Math magazine for her Louisiana students, to help her provide print and online resources to them at school or for remote learning. The project was High Interest Math Topics for My Bobcats.
She writes: It was such a nice surprise to open my email this morning and see FULLY FUNDED! I usually get funded by people I know from my community. This project was funded by complete strangers and that reminds me that there are still people who do kind deeds for others in this world.
And Mrs. Brewer wanted to provide some big Lego/Minecraft projects for her small-town Missouri middle school class, to help them develop skills like collaboration, analysis, and perseverance. We took advantage of a matching funds offer to see this project through — it was Creations without Boundaries.
She writes: "Thank you" doesn't seem enough to describe the gratitude I have for your generous donations. Money is so tight, especially in rural areas. Our students dream and achieve goals with the encouragement and kindness of people such as yourselves. Imagination will have the opportunity to have endless possibilities with the supplies you helped provide for my students. We are all excited to get started using them!!
Our Dollars at Work
Back in July, Mrs. Bopst was working to help her preschool students in Jacksonville, Florida stay engaged and get some hands-on science experiences while learning from home. We were able to help her provide garden kits so that each child could grow a tiny garden at home. The project was It's Grow Time. (More photos at the link.)
Thank you again for the wonderful support and resources you provided so that my students could have a hands on learning experience at their homes. The situation last year changed how I normally taught and encouraged and inspired my students with hands on activities in the classroom. The garden kits were a perfect activity for my VPK students to explore and create and observe the wonders of nature. I delivered all of the kits to my students' homes and they were so excited to receive the science activity. (I think they were excited to see me, too!) Thank you so much for your generosity.
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 858! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.