This week, we’re helping buy books for first graders in eastern Arkansas, and very small plants and animals who’ll live in ecosystems a Cleveland fifth grade builds from soda bottles. 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 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 really did a bang-up job with Mrs. Savanna’s book project last week, cutting its needed amount almost in half! We still have another weekend after this one to do our favorite combination of funding and incidental, effort-free promotion (which we do just by generating a burst of activity and making the project do the equivalent of “trending”). I am pretty confident we’ll get there.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students the opportunity to grow through reading as they start to learning to read in 1st grade.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Clarendon Elementary School, Clarendon, Arkansas
Total: $567.04
Still Needed: $286.15 $177.65
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Savanna:
My Project: My students will be transitioning from putting words together to actually reading books! This is one of the most exciting things about 1st grade. My students are very special to me and love to see new books that they love in their classroom library. These books have been specifically picked to fit my students interests to make them excited about reading.
We are building the foundation for the future readers of America.
I can't wait to see the excitement on my students faces as they see how big their classroom library has gotten.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Here are some read-aloud videos of some of the fun stories being requested.
I feel so good about project #1, I’m adding a new longer-term project this week, one with matching funds from an anonymous donor that can help us reach the finish line. Mrs. Saxon teaches fifth grade in Cleveland and has planned an extremely cool project for her class this year. It’s not clear from this project page, but her teacher page shows she’s done this project successfully in the past with DonorsChoose help. (Everything on her shopping list is a tiny living organism, even the “tank set”, which is actually a collection of 11 little marine critters.) So yes, you can raise plants and animals in a couple of two-liter soda bottles!
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students a Carolina Touch Tank, Fantail Goldfish, Mosquito Fish, and other aquatic items to support our hands on learning with ecosytems.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Nathan Hale Elementary School, Cleveland, Ohio
Total: $867.05 (2x matching funds from “An Anonymous Funder”)
Still Needed: $867.05 $717.05 ($359 from us)
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Saxon:
My Project: My students attend school in a large urban district in Ohio, where 100% of the student body receives free breakfast and lunch. Many of our students walk to school through neighborhoods characterized by boarded-up abandoned buildings and overgrown empty lots. Despite this, my students manage to come to school daily with a passion for education and especially love rising to the task of project-based, inquiry learning.
These materials will make a difference in my students' learning because they especially enjoy learning opportunities that allow them to have hands-on experiences and different learning modalities.
Having resources for constructing and investigating an actual ecosystem will make a huge difference in my students' learning.
My students will get to extend learning beyond the textbook by participating in a STEM activity in which we construct a pop bottle ecosystem complete with live mosquito fish, snails, pillbugs, and aquatic producers. We would first start out by using our available technology to research each of the main organisms that we will handle.
Next, students will contribute by donating/recycling empty 2-liter pop bottles. Students will build the terrarium by utilizing one of the bottles. Inside the terrarium, students will grow grass, mustard, and radish seeds. They will use daily journals to record observations and measurements, as insects and abiotic materials are slowly introduced to the environment. They will use the other pop bottle to make the aquarium portion of the ecosystem. Aquatic plants and organisms will be added and observed as well. Finally, the students will connect the land and water containers to make a complete ecosystem.
We will use the touch tank organisms and goldfish to make predictions, test theories, and further extend our knowledge. This project will significantly help my students understand how all organisms (big or small) are connected within an ecosystem.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
This was the best demo video I could find on what the project to be built is like.
These little “mosquito fish” are one of the organisms that will be moving to Cleveland.
No teacher notes today, since we had only one project last week and it’s still in progress. Just a thank-you from me to all our community here, even people we don’t know who read without signing up and then drop in to help our projects.
Down at the end, you’ll see we’re at 991 successful projects that this series has participated in since 2009, coming up on 1,000 I’m sure before the end of the year. That’s a BFD! I’m so happy we’re still able to do our little bit to help, as public schools and teachers are more embattled than ever. I’m so grateful to, and proud of, readers of Daily Kos who care enough to do what they can for our kids’ education, no matter what form that may take. Thank you!
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 combats the anti-science, anti-education push in conservative America by funding science, math, and literacy projects in red-state 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 991! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.