Past projects 3
Help Bring Nature Indoors
Funded Feb 28, 2022Thank you so much for supporting the students at my school! Your generous donation will impact the lives of over three hundred children, from kindergarten to 5th grade. Because of you, they will have hands-on activities to help them learn about the natural world and their role in the environment.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Wood
This classroom project was brought to life by Black History Month Partners and 12 other donors.Create a Legacy of STEM Leaders
Funded Mar 18, 2017I'd like to thank you for your generosity in funding this project. When students asked where all these tools came from, and I explained that people who cared about their education donated the supplies to them, they were really touched. Watching them quietly process the idea that people they didn't even know wanted them to be successful was a fascinating moment, ending with a bunch of "oohs" and "wow"s and smiles. They were extra eager to take on the responsibility of learning to use real tools and passing that knowledge down to younger students, and more than a little proud to be chosen to receive such interesting and unique equipment.
While we wait to begin our afterschool segment of the project, our program's use of the tools has taken an interesting turn. Our Math Specialist is now using them with her high-level students to provide enrichment through STEM design briefs (even her little kindergartners were able to build working catapults for their pumpkin chuckin' challenge!). I am teaching tool use in my K-5 Environmental Studies classes, with the goal of assisting them to design and build their solutions to the environmental issues that we study throughout the year (for example, third grade will be working on a watershed pollution cleanup project in a nearby creek near the end of the year). I am happy to say that I am seeing a lot of creativity and enthusiasm in the classes I work with, and I have a feeling that after school STEM clubs will be a hit!
I really wish you were all nearby to see the fruits of your generosity, but I hope you know that your gifts are appreciated and put to good use. I know I can't wait to watch these students shine!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Wood
This classroom project was brought to life by Overdeck Family Foundation & Simons Foundation and 2 other donors.Measuring Up For Success!
Funded Feb 25, 2015You would think I was exaggerating if I told you that something as ostensibly dry and functional as scientific measurement tools would bring joy to elementary school students, but in fact, this is what is happening with my children. It took a little time, some proper training and convincing that these objects were useful for exploring, but I now have students, for example, who drag 30 meter measuring tapes around the playground measuring the perimeter of the mulch beds thinking this is an appropriate way to spend their recess time. I have students who are spending morning meeting massing beakers full of kidney beans on triple beam balances for fun. I have students who try to find out if 30 mL of rain water is heavier than 30 mL of apple sauce in graduated cylinders suspended from a spring scale which was not hanging over a garbage can. This is the messy, curious business of learning that now goes on in my classroom thanks to the tools you wonderful people have acquired for my students.
The children related to me that they were touched that people who did not know them cared enough about them and their education to give them what they needed to succeed in science. They asked me to let you know that while they might not be scientists when they grow up (though several have ambitions to be marine biologists and paleontologists as well as mad scientists), that they would use the tools really well, and that they would be really good observers of the natural world anyway. As a science teacher, I could not ask for a better outcome.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Wood