DrugMonkey Blog's Science-Up the Schools Challenge

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At my high school, there is a shortage of qualified chemistry teachers and chemistry laboratory rooms. As a National Board Certified Teacher in science (even though my degrees are in biology), my credential extends to the physical sciences as well. However, I do not have the laboratory facilities to adequately have students perform chemistry experiments. Most experiments require expensive glassware and equipment. That is fine in a chemistry laboratory classroom, but it is limiting in a nonlaboratory setting. There has been a movement to create experiments that demonstrate the ideas that are being studied with minimal equipment and safe chemicals. That is what microchemistry is all about. However, even though the procedure has been established to perform chemistry laboratories in a laboratory without all of the typical glassware, sinks, and electricity, the cost can also be a limiting factor. Thanks to your generosity, however, 120 kids were able to perform several of these types of experiments that they would NOT have been able to do otherwise. My science budget was $200 this year, and most of that money went toward basic safety equipment for the labs (goggles and aprons). Not only were the students able to learn about how aspirin is made from the bark of willow trees, but I also used the parts of the kit that you provided to do other laboratory exercises, including a lab on using red cabbage as a natural acid indicator test. As the state tests are coming soon, I know that having laboratory experiments as a benchmark to recall information is vital in the sciences. Hopefully, this will translate into higher test scores. Regardless, even more important is that the kids will remember the process of actually DOING chemistry. Your help was a big part of this very important result. Thank you!”

With gratitude,

Mr. Vallejo

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I am so touched by all of your generosity. It was gratifying to receive the support and kind words from so many people in our community. You have enabled me to begin making this project come to life. I also want to express my appreciation for those of you who are not even familiar with our school. We would not have reached full funding if it weren't for "the kindness of strangers". We have a wonderful, but small community, so receiving donations beyond our town was vital in order to reach this goal. I am so excited to begin laying the foundation for this work. I plan to move slowly, in order to make the learning deeper and long-lasting. Working within our multi-grade classroom over three years, will allow each of our students to really "own" this work. It will impact them in so many ways, both now and in the future. On behalf our classroom, school, and community I thank you all so very much!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Benner

I would like to express sincere gratitude for your extreme generosity. Even during a tough economy, it is amazing that you were bighearted and giving to our class. As budgets are cut across the nation, it is people like you that make our classroom projects exist. You also help make learning very interesting, and students feel motivated and successful! Both the pull-down map of our solar system and the Universe CD-ROM software have made a huge impact on our Astronomy unit. The map is very large, colorful, and detailed with important facts. My students gained a lot of knowledge exploring and using the map, including planet diameters, distances from the sun, and the lengths of rotations and revolutions. The diagrams have been extremely helpful in providing visual examples of large concepts. Learning about solar and lunar eclipses was definitely a favorite topic among my students. Verbal explanations alone do not completely teach students concepts. However, visual aids and hands-on activities reach more learners, and make the concepts meaningful. Our new solar system map allowed me to do just that. Many students had "ah-ha!" moments when using our wonderful map! Many connections were made to previous and new astronomy information, increasing knowledge on many different levels. We will definitely continue to use the map this year, and for many years to come! Encyclopedia Britannica's Universe CD-Rom is packed with many breathtaking animations of traveling through space and time. Scientists' knowledge about the birth of the universe, stars, galaxies, planets, and our solar system are displayed and explained. Students engaged in the encyclopedia, video library, timelines, graphics, and animations. They were definitely curious and engaged throughout our study! Many were eager and encouraged to study and explore the universe more in-depth. Once again, thank you for making our Astronomy unit extremely enriched. Your generous donations are greatly appreciated, and have made a tremendous impact on my students! Thank you!!!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Grijalva

Thank you so much for your generous donations that has enabled my class to use the "Mouse Mischief" program. We had a bit of a rocky start getting the technology going but, now everything is working quite well.

With this program I am able to make power point presentations that allow the students to individually click on answers to questions. We use it to practice spelling, diagram sentence structure and look at writing strategies. We use it as we read to help us focus on comprehension questions. My students are paying a lot more attention to what they read because they are so motivated to be able to click on the right answer to the questions

The best part, for me, is that after each question I can get feedback as to how many students clicked on the right answer. This helps me know if I need to further explain or reteach a concept.

This really is a powerful tool and I am glad I can use it with my students.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Hay

Thank you so much for funding our classroom project. The resources we were able to purchase have enhanced each and every unit I teach. In a class like Chemistry many students have a hard time understanding some of the very abstract concepts. The Standard Deviants DVDs are designed specifically for high school level chemistry. They are a perfect supplement to our curriculum.

Because of the generous support of donors like yourself my classroom is changed for the better. I utilize this resource on a regular basis and it is available for students who may be in need of extra help or tutoring.

It is hard for me to express the depth of my gratitude. As teachers we become fierce advocates for our students and their needs. More often than not our efforts to obtain the resources necessary are fruitless. With DonorsChoose we now have the support of so many other advocates of public schools.

Thank you again for your generous support!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Pereira

I cannot even begin to tell you how much I appreciate your support! My students are so excited about reading and are learning so much from the books that you donated. I wish you could all be there to see their eagerness to read the books.

All of my students are learning so much about Baltimore and are falling in love with reading at the same time! It is remarkable how much more fun learning is when the students have materials that they are interested in!

My students are so grateful to have the three books that you donated. I couldn't have made social studies this much fun without you! Thanks again for supporting my classroom and making a difference in my students' lives! ”

With gratitude,

Ms. Deutsch

We are off to a great year with our new work binders. Thanks again for all of donations for this project. The students have each subject labeled and organized. Keeping our important work pages and projects in our binders save us time, energy, and tears. The other supplies are kept neatly in the pencil pouches that fit right in our binders.

Having these binders and other supplies make it much easier for me when we are transitioning from one subject to the next. The students know where things belong and I know where to find them when we need it for the next time.

Thanks again for all your help.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Pakenas

Thanks so much for getting us off to a good school year! I was worried at the end of last year that many of the activities I like student to do or demonstrate for them wouldn't be funded. The students love doing these activities and I have a "blast" (like seen in the sodium reaction demo photo) doing some of the demos.

Your support is being appreciated by a significant number of student and will last for a good portion of the year.

Thanks again for your generous support!

Have a great holiday season this year!”

With gratitude,

Mr. Tenenbaum

When I revealed the cameras in their little boxes to my students and explained the projects, my students' eyes lit up. When I put the cameras in their hands and let the students experience being both in front and behind the camera, they either grinned from ear to ear or, as they played with the camera settings, furrowed their brows in deadlocked concentration. It was a beautiful sight to see interest and creativity pique in such a way.

As a classroom our hearts are racing to get started on this project, which would not have been possible without your help. Thanks to you, each of these students will get to use their minds and their hands to build story comprehension like they have never seen before in an experience that they will never forget.

Thank you for so much for your gift!”

With gratitude,

Mr. Brinker

My comics class has been meeting for just about a month now. It's a wonderful sight to see students poring over their textbooks, struggling with comics terms such as panels, the gutter, and closure, and applying those terms to pages copied from texts as diverse as Robot Dreams and Mouse Guard: Fall 1152. We have not yet begun reading the actual anchor texts, we've been learning to interpret comics first, but yesterday I gave each student a copy of American Born Chinese so that we could write our thank you letters and post our pictures to the Donors Choose site.

That book has already accomplished what I hoped it would; students immediately began showing their own diverse interests in comics style and content. One student said, "Watchmen is going to be so awesome!" while another said, "No! American Born Chinese is going to be the best!" They cannot wait to get started.

Through your generous donations we are creating a culture of readers, some of whom have confided that they'd never read a comic book in their lives and now they are asking where they can go to buy them and whether they can borrow the books that I have in the classroom.

This is truly a special, unique opportunity and it would never have been possible without your dedication to literacy.

On behalf of my students, school community, and myself, I thank you,”

With gratitude,

Ms. E.