Past projects 2
Future Scientists of Philadelphia Need Your Help!
Funded Apr 22, 2024On behalf of our Science Olympiad team, I want to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your generous donation. Your support has allowed us to purchase essential power tools and materials for our build events, which are a vital part of our competition. These tools have already made a significant impact, as our students have been busy working on the Elevated Bridge project. At the end of the school year, we held a workshop where our engineering students collaborated with others skilled in woodwork to design and construct a lightweight yet strong bridge. It was incredible to see the students' faces light up when their carefully crafted bridge held the maximum weight, earning them a gold medal in our practice tournament.
Your generosity is not only providing the tools necessary for success but also fostering an environment of teamwork, creativity, and hands-on learning. Thanks to your support, our students are developing skills that will serve them well beyond the classroom, and we are excited to see what they will accomplish next.
Sincerely,
Shane Fitzgerald
AP Biology Teacher & Science Olympiad Coach @ Central High School”
With gratitude,
Mr. Fitzgerald
This classroom project was brought to life by Power for Good Foundation and one other donor.Hands-on STEM learning experience for Philadelphia students
Funded Sep 7, 2021I want to extend my greatest appreciation for your support in funding this project. My students were so excited when they first learned we would be doing "real science" in the classroom. Before introducing this lab we had spoken about the technique of bacterial transformation and students had so many questions about the process, including how do you grow bacteria?, what kind of bacteria works?, do you need a fancy lab to do this? What was amazing was being able to have them answer these questions on their own once they started and completed the lab. When I first showed them the bacterial culture so many students said "that's it?", at first feeling underwhelmed, but once we grew colonies in a culture they were enthralled at how quickly and large they grew.
While not one of the purposes or expected outcomes of this lab, one of the fascinating things with performing this lab was many students accidentally ended up contaminating their experimental bacterial plates with bacteria from the class environment, or their own bacteria from their skin. It lead to a wonderful discussion about how bacteria is everywhere in the world and when you are working in these kind of laboratory settings you must completely sterilize everything 100%, which in a classroom environment is not really possible. We were however able to generate and brainstorm some great ways to sterilize our area much more for future experiments. These ideas from our brainstorming sessions will spill over to next year's students so they can have an even better outcome with this lab.
Thank you for this great experience for our students!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Fitzgerald
This classroom project was brought to life by Emerson Collective and 2 other donors.