Mr. Hitchcock's Classroom Edit display name

Past projects 3

• We Live on an Island, Help Us Learn to Fish!

  Funded Apr 29, 2023

  Thanks so much for your contribution. Fishing is such a great way for students to connect to their local environment and members of the community. I have already seen the impact, in their respect and curiosity for local fisheries, and have even run into them fishing with family and friends over the summer. The fishing program has become extremely popular, and I look forward to continue it for many years. We go fishing frequently, a few times a month. Even my classes that havent gone fishing yet, are requesting to go fishing.”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. Hitchcock

  This classroom project was brought to life by General Motors and 3 other donors.

• Help Make Field Studies More Sustainable

  Funded Aug 26, 2017

  Thank you so much for helping to purchase the dissolved oxygen meter for my students. It came just in time. My students are very concerned about their local environment and thus we do lots of field studies where we collect different types of field data. Our biggest study is oyster monitoring. We've been working with the Billion Oyster Project for three years now, which involves taking extensive data on the local water quality. The dissolved oxygen ampules we were using were expensive for consumables, and were not as accurate or eco-friendly as the electronic meter.

  Having a strong background in water quality testing, the students were super-excited to put the meter to the test. Eagerly they unwrapped the shipping package and dove into the instruction manual to attempt to learn how to work the device. After a couple of false starts (including putting the batteries in backwards) the finally managed to take some readings of some water samples in the lab. After that, we went out to our oyster restoration station in Coney Island Creek and collected a bunch of data for our study. We compared the meter data to our previous method of testing and the new data is far more precise.

  I suppose the best part about the dissolve oxygen meter is hearing the students say that it using it made them feel like "real scientists"-which of course, they are.”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. Hitchcock

  This classroom project was brought to life by Tom's of Maine and 3 other donors.

• Help My Students Share Their Scientific Data!

  Funded Jan 27, 2017

  My scholars are incredibly grateful for your donation. We have been using the tablets on a regular basis both to collect data, research projects, and upload our findings, which we then share with other citizen scientists.

  My 6th grade recently used the tablets on an expedition to track the movement of water in their neighborhood, filming and live commenting on the absorption rates of soil, concrete, wood, and sand. Tracking the movements of surface runoff. They were also able to take lots pictures of phenomenon to analyze later. Since we are tracking movements of water, we were able to use the tablets to get precise locations of each photo using Google maps. Then we used the tablets to get information about new and existing sewer lines being added to the neighborhood post-Hurricane Sandy.

  My 7th grade has been using the tablets to enter data from our oyster restoration station as well as use the tablets to collect comparative data on weather and other site conditions, which they use as a control variable against the data we collect in the field. This can be extremely helpful if we're having difficulty with some of our field tools. For example, it may allow us to get tide conditions as real time locational data, or get a humidity reading in the event its too cold for the sling psychrometer to get an accurate reading. They are currently using the tablets to research the locations of local waste disposal facilities that process things like lead paint and batteries in our immediate vicinity. They want to use this information create a field study on soil samples along shoreline of the neighborhood's saltwater creek. They also expressed interest in tracking data on products advertised (including food, cigarettes, and alcohol) in their neighborhood as compared to the types of products advertised and sold in more affluent neighborhoods.

  My 8th grade has also been using the tablets to aid them in the research and design of a small oyster reef that they are interested in placing in the same creek. They have also used the tablets to collect and enter data on water quality and neighborhood pollution. Finally we use the tablets to record, track and research organisms in our local ecosystem such as mussels, shrimp, eels, crabs.

  In short, the tablets have been a real game changer in allowing my students to access and process, share and record information in real time, to immediately accommodate their natural inquisitiveness and readily encourages them to build on their inquiries to actively pursue their own academic interests.”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. Hitchcock

  This classroom project was brought to life by Anonymous Donor and one other donor.