Highly Allochthonous's Earth Science Challenge

Edit title

This is just a small token of my gratitude for the generous donation to our classroom. The rocks and minerals that you have donated have helped my students through their knowledge of all the content areas in rocks and minerals. We have used them to connect to the rock cycle, which we read about in the science text. The original rocks and minerals that we used were only about a quarter of the size and were worn down. The new kits we received were perfect for testing the hardness, streak, and individual properties of rocks.

Without your help I never would have been able to purchase these wonderful materials. Even in these hard economic times it is such a blessing to see wonderful people like yourselves helping classrooms in need.

Without donors like you, thousands of classrooms would go without. ”

With gratitude,

Mr. Oliver

On behalf of my students, thank you all so very much for you kind contribution towards this project. The students have benefited tremendously from the different materials purchased through your philanthropy. The rock sets have allowed them to see and experience rocks and minerals in a way that is impossible through textbook pictures or videos. The review game has motivated the students in a way that I never could, and their assessments have shown a more complete, thorough understanding of their learning standards.

Once again, thank you for the donations that have made this project a reality. Your kindness will insure that hundreds of students for years to come will benefit from your contribution.”

With gratitude,

Mr. Toyama

Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity in donating toward science equipment and resources for my classroom. The children have been able to use the small weather station to measure the wind, temperature, and precipitation. I have used the Jumpstarters for Meteorology Book and Weather Transparency Book to develop lessons and a learning packet about weather for all the classes in the fourth grade. The children had fun watching the anemometer spin in the wind, counting the rotations, and learning which direction the wind was blowing from. We played Weather Bingo and learned to recognize the different clouds and instruments, etc. It has been interesting to use the hygrometer to measure the humidity in the classroom. The Interactive Weather Map Bulletin Board Set has helped the children learn more about weather fronts and weather symbols used in forecasting the weather. The Clever Catch Ball was used in a group activity where they toss the ball back and forth answering the weather related question wherever their thumb landed.

These hands on weather instruments and learning resources have helped the children recognize the weather around them each day. They are excited to go outside and observe the changes occurring in the weather day to day. Learning that the different types of clouds indicate changes in the weather gives the children knowledge to base their choices of what clothes to wear to school that day. There is a saying in Utah that if you don't like the weather, just wait a little bit and it will change. The students have learned that many days that is an accurate saying. One day they observed five different forms of precipitation within just hours: rain, sleet, snow, snow pellets, and hail.

Thank you again for your wonderful contribution to the learning of my students. It was such a great Christmas present to find my project funded on Christmas Day. Thank you for being willing to help students and teachers achieve their goals and have fun learning together.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Langford

Thank you for contributing to our experiment. Students love doing experiments even if it covers a topic they know little about. Transpiration is a difficult subject to cover and even harder to find a good experiment on that students will be able to perform. This lab is perfect for this grade level and has several things going on. It contains a control and three variables which is important for students to see as well.

The students enjoyed doing this lab and no one had trouble doing the experiment.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Ball

I can't thank you all enough for your commitment to education and specifically to the students at our school. The weather station and software that we were able to purchase has allowed us to bring our weather unit alive for our students. Instead of just reading about it in a textbook our students are now able to collect and interpret real data from their own town. The software has made the data available to them via the Internet, so they can no continue their research and data collection over the weekends. And they really enjoy the fact that their weather station is part of an online weather station system that allows people all over the world to view current and historical weather from out town! This allows them to more accurately complete the prediction aspect of our unit. Having our own weather station has made weather come alive for our students! Thank you so very much!”

With gratitude,

Mr. Grabski

For the past few months all of my students have been engrossed in the books you sent. The engagement these books have provided has been more than I could have hoped for. It has been exciting for me as a teacher to see students use books as both a reference and as entertainment!

Just yesterday, I had a female student reading one of the college level Earth Science textbooks you sent. She used it to deepen her understanding of why global wind patterns exist. When I initially asked her to reference our 6th grade textbook, the information provided was not enough to quench her thirst for knowledge. After reading the college book she said: "I had to read this three times but now it all makes sense! This book is really cool!" It was a wonderful moment.

Thank you so much for donating to this project and making moments like this possible. There is no such thing as having too many books in a classroom but there is such thing as having too few. Thank you for helping us have books in ours. ”

With gratitude,

Mr. Lesser

Thank you all so much for your generous donations to my classroom project, "The Earth and Beyond." My students and I have found that all of our resources and tools are extremely helpful and fun.

The inflatable planets help liven up my classroom and the students love them. The planets videolab has been a wonderful enrichment tool. The kids enjoy being able to recreate events that actually occur in space. The telescope and star finder are both so exciting. The students and I have had stargazing events several evenings and plan on having many more.

It is so gratifying to teach a subject that students enjoy learning about. I want to thank you again for your donations and generosity. Without you some of my students would never be exposed to some of these things. ”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Davis

Thank you once again for donating to my project. My students and I really benefited from interacting with the engaging texts your donations funded. The aerial photographs featured in the selections are both stunning and informative.

After conducting a stream table investigation and making aerial drawings of the investigation results, my students viewed the various texts in small groups. After this kind of study of aerial photographs, my students grasped the concept of aerial photographs, an important concept for fifth graders in my state to understand, and my students also had the opportunity to use landform vocabulary to describe what they saw in the photographs.We repeatedly return to the books to deepen our understanding of how various agents shape the earth. The texts also helped my students understand one way aerial photographs are used.

Because of you, this year's fifth graders and many other classes to come will be able to use literature to understand the wonder of science. You are the best!”

With gratitude,

Ms. James