Past projects 8
Kids Love Kinematics Experiments!
Funded Nov 8, 2024I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your generous support of "Kids Love Kinematics Experiments." The materials you've helped to supply to my classroom are already making both as direct impact on my students' physics experience, as well as indirectly encouraging the pursuit of science and engineering by other students in my school.
Because our school works on a semester schedule, my AP Physics 1 course only started about two weeks ago, so we have not had a chance to use many of the materials yet. Nevertheless, in Week 1 of the course, students got to participate in one of the most fun and exciting hands-on labs the course offers, called Chase the Thief, in which they measure the motion of constant velocity and uniformly accelerating cars to predict when and where the cars would be at the same position.
Not only did the materials you helped me purchase make the lab easy for my students to complete, but by doing the lab in the hallways, my students got the chance to show other students and teachers in the building how engaging and fun physics - a class with a reputation for being extremely difficult - can actually be. As the course continues, my goal is to do more labs outside of my classroom so that my students have room to collaborate with their new materials, and so other future physicists can be inspired to pursue this amazing discipline in years to come.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester
This classroom project was brought to life by Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation and 12 other donors.Physics Experiments Made Better With Dynamics Cart Tracks!
Funded Aug 10, 2024If there is one thing students are saturated with these days, it's screen time, and so they almost universally resent when I have them perform virtual labs using laptops in the classroom. While virtual labs and simulations give students opportunities to investigate phenomena, make measurements, and analyze data - all essential scientific practices - they fail to excite students because of their lack of novelty and their disconnection from the real world. In short, while virtual labs serve an important educational purpose and are necessary at times, their effectiveness has limits.
As such, whenever I can give students real, hands-on experiences with scientific investigations, their engagement rises significantly. The low-friction tracks with built-in measuring tools dramatically improves my ability to do this as my students' teacher because now I can run enough lab stations to serve a whole class at one time, and the experiments my students can conduct and the data they can collect are now far more efficient, reliable, and precise. In the past, I could only perform demonstrations for the whole class using hands-on, authentic tools before sending students to a related virtual experience. Now, all students can work directly with making actual, real-world scientific measurements.
As I gain more experience with the tools, I plan to make them available to other teachers in the building who also teach physics-related concepts, and to collaborate with those teachers to design grade-appropriate activities for middle school science students and math students. The high quality, sturdy nature of the tools will allow us to easily and confidently share them between classes and help facilitate efficient set-up to serve as many students as possible. As we continue to build our school-wide science program, I can't wait to see what our students will be capable of doing with these materials. Thank you so much for your support!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester
This classroom project was brought to life by Michael Jordan and The Jordan Brand and one other donor.Fantastic Physics Demos!
Funded May 6, 2024Since our new physics equipment arrived last week, my students have had the chance to use it repeatedly to test physics laws, make careful and precise observations, and create and analyze graphs of the motion of objects in a collaborative setting. While we already had some digital supplies to measure motion, force, and acceleration, my students were definitely more excited to see the wireless Bluetooth equipment your generosity provided. They were especially engaged and excited to see data being generated in real time on our classroom's Smartboard, which is making whole group demonstrations and discussions far more inclusive and collaborative.
For example, in the last two days, students competed to try to design the most effective "bumper" for our new wireless Vernier Go Direct sensor cart using nothing more than paper and tape. Once each group completed their design and prototype, we attached their bumpers to the new Vernier cart and measured their effects on the acceleration experienced by the cart during a collision. We were also able to directly measure the force experienced by the cart during this collision using our new Vernier Go Direct force sensor. The experience was exhilarating because, rather than having to deal with cumbersome cords and a delay in results, students could see the results immediately as graphs were generated for everyone to see on the classroom Smartboard through the Bluetooth connection with the probeware. Using the accessories for the Sensor Cart, we could also compare the effectiveness of their bumpers with those from Vernier.
As our school year winds down and I plan activities for the next school year, I already see how experiments related to displacement, velocity, acceleration, and forces will be improved with our new Vernier Fan Cart, Wireless Photogate, Wireless Motion Detector, Wireless Force Sensor, and Wireless Sensor Cart and accessories. I intend to obtain additional funding to supplement this equipment with more sensors so students have more opportunities to work independently and directly with these technologies and have an exciting and rigorous experience in their AP Physics 1 class in the future.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester
This classroom project was brought to life by General Motors and 9 other donors.Students Speaking Like Scientists!
Funded Feb 8, 2023On behalf of my high school biology students, I want to sincerely thank you for your generosity in funding my project, "Students Speaking Like Scientists." Since receiving the materials, my students have had a variety of ways to communicate their ideas with each other that have emphasized creativity, interactivity, and individuality.
The whiteboard markers and erasures have allowed students to participate in activities such as "consensus placements," where individuals first brainstorm ideas about a question in their own corner of a large whiteboard before sharing their individual ideas and coming to a consensus in the middle of the board. Instead of students only working by themselves or only communicating their ideas directly to me, students are sharing their ideas with each other and engaging in original thinking and debate. Along the way, students are learning how to use advanced scientific vocabulary to express their learning and understanding in sophisticated ways.
Students have also used the posters and Post-It notes to play brainstorming games and share their ideas with each other. Again, the learning of students is being deepened and enhanced because students are being allowed to express themselves in fun and creative ways so students are alert, engaged, and personalizing their learning with their own language and experiences. The materials that your generosity supplied make these types of activities easier to facilitate and far more frequent in my classroom. Thank you!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester
This classroom project was brought to life by Black History Month Partners and one other donor.Water Baths for Biology!
Funded Nov 30, 2022Since your generous contributions made our water baths and pH materials available, my biology students and I have been using them on a near-weekly basis to conduct authentic scientific investigations in order to enhance content learning and infuse our class with inquiry in a safe and efficient manner. We have used the water baths in particular to study how isopods react to changes in temperature, provide energy for the chemical reaction needed to detect the presence of glucose in a solution, and see how yeast produce waste gas when they break down sugar in cellular respiration to produce ATP.
My students are impressed with the professional quality of the materials visible and being used in our classes, and the equipment genuinely influences their behavior and confidence in class. Before having access to these materials, investigations involving differing temperature involved precarious and, frankly, dangerous set-ups that involved wires, thermometers, glass beakers, water, and hot plates. For the sake of safety, I realistically couldn't let students work with these materials directly, instead resorting to demonstrations, rather than hands-on student activities. Given the safety features of working with professional material that is truly being used in the way it was designed, students are far more directly involved in the work of our laboratories.
Later this week, students will have the opportunity to use water baths and pH buffers again when they design and conduct investigations to determine how enzyme catalysts and environmental factors affect the reactions rates of metabolic reactions in yeast. The materials made available by your contributions will make the inquiry investigation far more open, and therefore impactful, for my students as they learn not just biology content, but how to think and act as biological scientists. Thank you!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester
This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and 3 other donors.Making Human Anatomy Come Alive!
Funded Nov 30, 2022My human anatomy and physiology students have been thrilled with the opportunities to work with the actual specimens that your generous contributions have afforded them. Without access to slides of human tissues, sheep hearts, cow eyes, frogs, and fetal pigs, this class would be challenging, monotonous, and, frankly, meaningless because students would have to learn a lot of facts and vocabulary about cells, tissues, organs, and systems that they would otherwise never get to see with their own eyes and touch with their own hands.
The materials provided by your contributions have added a certain level of mystique to my human anatomy class that has pervaded beyond my own students to the rest of our school. I have made a point of revealing the specimens early in the course, long before students actually get to use them, to inspire excitement and curiosity in the kids. When students first see the specimens, they react with questions, exclamations, and a lot of nervous energy at the idea of having a chance to do something they have rarely if ever gotten to do before - dissect actual organic specimens. They also talk about what they have seen with their friends, and these reports, along with the odor of the dissection specimens, spreads excitement for the anatomy class to the rest of the school. When my students have had the opportunity to dissect, we've invited other classes, including middle school science students, to observe and ask questions about what the older students are doing and seeing.
Moving forward, while continuing their basic study of human anatomy and physiology and use of dissection and microscopic materials, my students will be participating in a field study with a local university to explore and discuss the ethical treatment of remains discovered near, and likely unethically used in the past by a local medical school, in order to apply what they have learned in anatomy to this real-world, local issue. The combination of hands-on, authentic investigations and project-based learning, made possible by your contributions and the involvement of our local community, are certainly making this high school course one to remember for my students. Thank you so much for making these experiences possible.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester
This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and 4 other donors.Chromebooks For Cadets of Franklin Military Academy
Funded Mar 3, 2016Dear Donors,
It is with deepest appreciation that I write this thank you for providing the funds needed to buy a small set of Samsung Chromebooks for my classroom. My biology and physics students use them on a nearly daily basis to explore and make science come alive through simulations, virtual experiments, and online research. Having the new technology in my classroom provides the flexibility I need to get my kids working, investigating, collaborating, and discovering science rather than simply watching or hearing about it. Furthermore, my students are actively engaged when they are using the Chromebooks, giving me the freedom to individually measure their progress and provide individualized feedback and guidance as needed. In short, the Chromebooks have made it that much easier for me to work as a facilitator of student inquiry of science in the classroom instead of a dispenser of science content and facts.
The impact this difference makes on student learning is extraordinary. Not only am I able to provide a more differentiated and individualized educational experience to my students, but they also feel more engaged in authentic learning activities that involve the Chromebooks. One student told me earlier this year that he "felt like a spy" when he got to use them because of their sleek design and ease of use. This shift in their mindset regarding education, from something that is boring and repetitive to something exciting and fun, is priceless in my pursuit to inspire students to learn about, love, and even pursue science in the future.
Once again, thank you for your generosity and consideration of my students. You can rest assured the Samsung Chromebooks are absolutely having a significantly positive impact on my students' education.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester
Our School's BULLY Documentary Screening
Funded Oct 23, 2012Thank you for giving us the opportunity as an entire school to see the documentary, Bully. Preventing this form of abuse has become a serious and important initiative at our school - our entire staff has been trained in how to identify and respond to instances of bullying, and as an school community we have organized times to meet throughout the year in small groups to help empower students to do the same. Despite all these actions, reactions to the program have been mixed at times. Because our school is small and relatively tight-knit, many students and staff do not believe bullying is a serious issue here, and many have expressed reservations about the time and energy we have already spent to address the problem.
Watching Bully as a whole school was an incredibly emotional and unifying experience for us. Several students cried, and as a whole, the faculty and students acknowledged the problem of bullying with new-found enthusiasm. The people portrayed in the movie helped to emphasize the point that bullying is more than just an individual school's problem. Whole communities can suffer as a result of it, and as future leaders, our students must be equipped to respond to such challenges.
Thank you again for giving us the opportunity as an entire school to travel and see Bully. It served as a fantastic and deeply meaningful kick-off to our annual anti-bullying program, and we will not forget the experience for quite some time.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Wester