Past projects 5
Protect & Serve - Gloves for Labs
Funded Nov 28, 2023My students are using the generous gift that you have provided everyday in the classroom. I realize that tissues and paper towels don't seem like science tools, but they come in very handy in keeping the students comfortable and safe. We do a lot of hands-on activities in my class and use towels that can be washed and dried when appropriate, however, some labs are so messy that paper towels are necessary to make a safe and through clean-up. Since the school provided paper towels are not able to absorb water, the student were thrilled to have a functional paper towel. It makes clean-up so much easier and safer. Of course, students having access to tissues when they need them, makes for a classroom that feels safe and caring. Our next lab involves students using a rubber jelly fish and causing it to flink (neither float or sink) for a 10 second period. They learn about buoyancy and how jellyfish swim. In this lab they will indeed need access to the provided paper towels that your generous donation provided.
It is truly nice that there are people who give to schools. We do have a budget for things to purchase but the money only goes so far, since most science supplies are not reusable. Once used they need to be replaced, so every donation that helps our students be better prepared for the future is an asset to our school and to the education of preparing our students for their next career.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Lafferty
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 4 other donors.Cleaning Up in the Classroom
Funded Dec 4, 2022The resources that were provided by you are being used within our classroom every day. There is no budget for tissues or sanitizer in my classroom, so it is a benefit to provide the students with soft tissues and an alternative to soap and water to clean their hands, since soap and water are not always available it is not only a beneficial but sanitary. Absorbent paper towels are necessary for our classroom almost every week when we deal with labs and dissections. We often use cloth towels (washable) when working with labs that do not involve harmful chemicals, but paper towels are used when we work with messy labs and body fluids.
When our students first saw the boxes they were interested in knowing what we had gotten in such large boxes. When they realized that we had new paper towels that actually absorbed liquids instead of just swooshing them around like our school paper towels, they were excited. "Paper towels that actually clean up the mess", one student said.
As cold and flu season hit, we were glad to have access to hand sanitizer and Kleenex tissues. As we finished the first box of tissues we noticed that the color had changed from white to beige... interesting. Why? We opened another box an anxiously awaited the end of the box to see if this was a fluke or a sign that the end of the box was near. Kleenex tissues were our latest and unplanned scientific experiment. We continued to collect data box after box and determined, it is indeed an indication that the tissues are almost gone. Brilliant Kleenex, brilliant.
Paper towels and soap have been an important part of our Zoology classroom as we dissect animals and clean-up after labs. Paper towels line our dissection trays and Dial soap cleans our hands. Thanks to our donors, we have a clean and sanitized classroom.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Lafferty
This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and 5 other donors.Cleaning Up in the Classroom
Funded Dec 3, 2019Thank you so much for the paper towels, tissues and hand-sanitizer for my classroom. I know that seems like a simple thing, but when you teach science, students are always needing paper towels for labs and spills. Unfortunately with the weather being what it has been lately with the colds and flu, tissues have come it handy too. One lab where we got to use our resources was in Biology when we were doing a lab about what worked better, hand-sanitizers or soap. Students used the sanitizer we received to clean their hands as we used agar on petri dishes to maintain sterile conditions and in the lab to see just how many germs it actually killed. The results were impressive, dial bar and hand soap and germ-X ruled the list of products that do exactly what they say," Kill germs".
My students where thrilled when we got what we call "real" paper towels as opposed to the brown paper towels the school provides. My students are pretty sure the brown ones are anti-absorbent and pretty much just spread the spill out until it looks like less but really isn't. They were so happy to have a product that works. Unfortunately the tissues come in handy too because this season has been a bad one for the flu.
I teach a required Biology class and two optional Zoology classes. My students are generally science inspired students. We do what we can to make sure that the learning environment is one in which they feel safe and comfortable. Having just a few things to make their life safer and more at ease helps my students to adapt to a new high school environment with peers that are also new to them. We thank the donors for making our classroom feel a little more like home and helping the students to feel like it is a place they don't mind coming back.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Lafferty
This classroom project was brought to life by An anonymous classroom supporter and 2 other donors.Witness the Beginning of Life!
Funded Mar 27, 2018Thank you for the incubator that you helped purchase for my classroom. The students were able to place eggs in the incubator (which also turns the eggs) and hatch little chicks. Since I teach Zoology, we have a bird unit and as we discussed the development of birds from fertilization to hatching, the students were fascinated. We became the surrogate mothers as we watched them develop by candling the eggs. The first time that a chick pipped (made a hole in the egg with an egg tooth) and hatched the kids were hooked. Every hour they came in to see the new developments.
Any time we get a package the students get excited because they know it is something that they will get to use in the classroom. As soon as the students realized that it was an incubator, they wanted to know what we were going to hatch. They made a whole list of things that we could incubate, how long to took to incubate them and how hard it would be to find the eggs to incubate. Someone knew a local farmer and decided that our best bet for our first incubation was chicken eggs.
So raising chicks was great, but my students want to try ducks, geese and turkeys next time. One class is interested in raising a lizard (reptile unit), probably whichever we can get contributed or afford to purchase. This activity also leads to students wanting to raise other things, so we hatched caterpillars into butterflies, hatched a pod of praying mantises and currently have tad poles that we are waiting to develop into bull frogs. Having an incubator in class opens up opportunities to our classroom that we did not have before which had led to an enriching environment for our students. And for that I give you, thanks.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Lafferty
This classroom project was brought to life by Ripple and 4 other donors.Who Let the Dogs Out?
Funded Dec 8, 2012I would like to express a heartfelt thank you to the donors who have made it possible for my students to have the gift of reading. So often my students come into the classroom with the experience of only having read text books in their content area, which are books that are very content driven but usually not easy reading for the students. The Plague Dogs not only allowed my students to experience interesting reading, but also allowed them to do reading in their content area (Biology).
Since The Plague Dogs not only addresses animal research, but also broaches the ethics behind research, it has allowed my students to dig deep into their feelings of what is right and wrong in terms of what you legally can do and what you should do. My students have been reading chapters in the book followed by questions and discussion. We have even talked about the different approaches to writing the author used to demonstrate different concepts or to express different moods. We will be concluding the book in about a week and will follow up with the movie based upon the book.
Every good book we have ever read, we keep in the back of our minds to pull up on a rainy day. We keep you our donors in the back of our minds as well, because without your generous and thoughtful donation to our cause, we would literally be without books to enhance our minds, move our souls and help us see the world beyond our own doorstep.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Lafferty
This classroom project was brought to life by Build-a-Bear Workshop Foundation and 4 other donors.