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As we near 8th grade graduation, my students are finalizing their "Rite of Passage" projects. Some have already earned their very own lab coats, as you can see in the pictures!

One of my students was failing my class all year, but the motivation he received from this project has empowered him to "really take [his] schoolwork seriously because it gets [him] things that [he] like[s] and need[s]." The project also pushed my more advanced students past boundaries they had never breached before. I am happy to say that this project was a huge success, and your donations made this success possible.

I have been elected by the 8th grade students to present diplomas at graduation. As I shake each student's hand, I will be so tickled to know that a large number of my science students will be wearing their lab coats beneath their graduation robes, as they have promised.

Thank you so much for your dedication to bringing opportunities to students in need. They are wonderful. They are powerful. And they are better of because of people like you.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Groover

Thank you so much for your generous donation to our classroom. The materials you helped to provide were essential in getting my students excited about learning.

The situation cards were the perfect jump start for them to begin researching where the trash we create ends up, as well as ways to reduce how much trash we actually produce. They enthusiastically created public service announcements or presentations to share with the rest of the class what they discovered. The "Where Does Our Trash Go" kit had great ideas for more hands-on activities that further emphasized our learning objectives. They enjoyed organizing the photographs to learn where trash goes once it leaves our houses, as well as doing projects that demonstrated how trash creates certain gases.

Your kindness made this unit a wonderful success and we are very appreciative of the materials that we would not have had access to otherwise.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Teece

Thank you all so very much for your generosity in funding our fetal pig project. We finished our dissection this morning. The students had a fantastic and extremely great learning experience over the past week with our fetal pigs that you all helped provide. We spent the entire first day on set-up and external anatomy. This built a great mood of anticipation--as students were literally begging me to let them make the first incision. But they all waited, and on the second day we started going through the internal anatomy. Students were able to see with their eyes and feel with their hands (and, unfortunately, smell with their noses!) the components to bodily systems they have spent the past 4 months learning about on paper.

Students who didn't want to participate in the dissection did a virtual dissection and still learned a lot. They were happy for that opportunity and liked exercising their right to choose parts of their education. Out of a class of 22, only 4 students did not want to participate in the dissection.

Today, when it was time to clean up, students didn't want to end it. They took pictures with their pigs. One pair of students--Brenda and Tyler--were particularly attached to their pig. Brenda was about 30 minutes late to school this morning and Tyler had already discarded their specimen. When Brenda did show up, she was on the brink of crying and wanted me to "put on gloves and find 'Carrie' from the garbage."

Overall, it was a fantastic learning experience for all parties involved, myself included. These seniors would NOT have gotten this experience without YOUR help. Thank you so much!

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With gratitude,

Mr. Urkov