This week, we're helping to provide hands-on materials for STEM lessons in never-before funded elementary school classrooms in Jonesboro, Georgia and Cactus, Texas. 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, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
We’ve made lots of progress on this never-before-funded teacher’s project, which will provide a Water Shortage STEM kit, a Gadgets Gizmos Invention kit, and other science kits for the gifted students in a Georgia elementary school classroom.
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students the ability to explore STEM concepts through hands on investigations. Students will try to solve real world problems with the Water Shortage STEM kit as well as try their hands at inventing.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Mt Zion Elementary School, Jonesboro, Georgia
Total: $366.80
Still Needed: $190.92 Completed, thank you! Please consider long-term project below.
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Thompson:
My Students: I am fortunate to be able to teach a dynamic group of gifted students in the Metro Atlanta area.
My students love to learn and explore and are always up for the challenges I provide them.
These are wonderful kids!
My Project: The materials in this project will go towards engaging my students in hand-on STEM investigations. My students are from culturally diverse, economically disadvantaged backgrounds and these kind of materials are not things that they would normally engage with at home.
My goal is to provide them with a classroom experience that will spark their curiosity and keep them thinking, and talking, about the activities when they get home.
I want them to make connections and think about how they can solve problems with what they have available. I want them to overflow with creativity!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Our long-term project is moving more quickly than expected because Matt Nolan, a donor connected with a DonorsChoose community — Small Towns, Big Dreams, which helps fund projects in rural communities — has brought in a bunch of small-dollar donors!
This never-before-funded teacher at an elementary school in Cactus, which is located in the Texas panhandle, has requested materials to help her students learn problem-solving skills. According to the 2010 Census, “67.9% [of Cactus’s population] identified themselves as being of Mexican origin and 16.4% identified themselves as being of Burmese origin,” but this teacher is describing an even more diverse student population a little over a decade later.
Here’s what she wrote on her DonorsChoose classroom page: “I have chosen puzzles, mind-benders, and memory games to challenge and build problem-solving in our students. Our school has a Maker Room that all students attend twice a week. The activities here focus on STEAM-based learning and range from art projects, to engineering challenges, to coding on laptops. We were looking at another way to teach problem-solving, and puzzles seemed to be a logical addition. Our students enjoy quality, hands-on challenges that don't necessarily require fluency in English.”
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students 22 opportunities to "Puzzle It Out". These puzzles and challenge games will give our students, ages 3 to 11, numerous challenges to building their problem-solving abilities in multiple ways.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Cactus Elementary School, Cactus, Texas
Total: $490.65
Still Needed: $319.38 $178.93
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Lori:
My Students: The students at our school speak at least one of 12 different languages or dialects from approximately 10 different countries. We have immigrants and refugees from Africa, Asia, Central America, and Mexico. Their families come into a new land, community, and school to gain new opportunities in America. The students have to not only learn the school basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but they have to learn a new language at the same time!
Our students are true puzzle solvers as they navigate new situations, expectations, languages, and lessons, each and every day.
They are working to figure out how the oral sounds the teacher is making relate to the object the teacher is holding or projecting on the overhead screen. They have to crack the code of how to sound out and spell words with a new alphabet. They might even have to unravel the mystery of indoor plumbing in this new, strange land.
I love to be able to bring problem-solving techniques to my students and help them figure out how to do all the new things in their new school. Our students are amazing and they are always a fun challenge.
My Project: I have chosen puzzles, mind-benders, and memory games to challenge and build problem-solving in our students. Our school has a Maker Room that all students attend twice a week. The activities here focus on STEAM-based learning and range from art projects, to engineering challenges, to coding on laptops. We were looking at another way to teach problem-solving, and puzzles seemed to be a logical addition.
Our students enjoy quality, hands-on challenges that don't necessarily require fluency in English, and puzzles work for this opportunity.
Long term, this will develop approaches that they will use to unravel math problems, assemble sounds to create words, and break apart unfamiliar words to create understanding and comprehension by use of cognates, prefixes, suffixes, and root words. In the short term, the kids are having fun.
These carefully chosen activities will work for our students:
* of ages 3 to 11
* who speak multiple languages, but are working to learn English
* who need a challenge that seems like game-play, but is building grit
* who need to build teamwork skills, and
* who desire to work alone or develop independence
Added note: This project will reach 350 students!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
A Head Start teacher in Muncie, Indiana finally got the good news that her project has been completed!
Outside Exploration
Thank you so much for donating to my project. The children will appreciate these materials and put them to great use in the classroom and outside. They love to explore and these materials will allow them to explore the outside world more efficiently and provide great learning experiences. Thank you tremendously.
With gratitude,
Ms. Irwin
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project combats the anti-science push in conservative America by funding science and math projects in traditionally red-state 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, among others.
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 911! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.