This week, we’re helping two teachers in small Oklahoma towns with majority Native American populations. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help by sharing or supporting our featured projects.
The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science, math, and literacy projects for public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
We have a new project #1 this week! Okmulgee, Oklahoma is considerably bigger than project #2’s location, Sasakwa, but in absolute terms is not very big. It’s the capital of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and lies south of Tulsa.
Mrs. Snow has in mind a big, Mars-related end-of-year project, involving nearly all the elementary and middle grades!
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students the tools to create our cardboard Mars station.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Okmulgee High School, Okmulgee, Oklahoma
Total: $189.72
Still Needed: $139.72 $89.72
Project description by Mrs. Snow: These tools would help my 2[nd]-8th grade students complete their large end-of-the-year project. All year we have been working through the stages of discovering a new planet, the difficulties of exploring the planet, resources, coding, and careers needed to get to that planet. All this new information will combine to design, and build our own cardboard Mars space station.
Each grade level will have teams creating their own station with the correct tools for their age and materials.
This is the ultimate end-of-the-year wrap-up. The cardboard efficient, but safe knives, will provide a scoring and cutting tool for our cardboard for more precise structures. The T-ruler will serve as a basic ruler, while also giving them an age-appropriate drafters version as well.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
The project requests an array of drafting tools, as Mrs. Snow mentions, but chief among them is a set of these innovative cardboard-cutting knives, much safer than conventional “box cutter” razor knives. (Please do not use them to make your PB&J!)
We made some good progress on project #2 last Sunday, and it’s attracted some more donors in the ensuing time, so we’re in great shape to get Ms. Hamm what she needs!
Sasakwa, Oklahoma is a very tiny town out southeast of Oklahoma City, in the Seminole Nation. Ms. Hamm teaches elementary-grades students, even though her school is listed as a high school, because there is only the one school, K-12, in town.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students a library of books and games to help them build their social skills for better interaction.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Sasakwa High School, Sasakwa, Oklahoma
Total: $485.48
Still Needed: $243.24 $143.24
Project description by Ms. Hamm: Everyone wants to be loved, accepted, and feel as though they are making a difference in their community. Teaching students how to do this from a young age, will help everyone around them. My students come from an economically and socially disadvantaged area and would benefit from increasing their knowledge of helping to improve the community in which they live, starting with themselves.
Providing them with an accessible library of character and social skills building books and games, will help them increase their skills needed to become active community members.
Social interaction is vital to building their self esteem and understanding of what being kind, caring and human is in making a better world.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
The requested book If You Give a Dog a Donut is part of a popular series.
Our first project from last week was completed, with help from our awesome readers!
Project #1, A Look At US History: Mrs. Brown wanted her Pensacola fifth graders to have some books to help them with American history.
She writes: Thank you so much for donating to my project, A Look at US History. The fifth grade teachers at my school do an in depth study of US history and they have requested these books to enhance their lessons. They are going to be thrilled to have these books for students to use as resources. Thank you again for investing in my students' education.
DonorsChoose has developed the designation Equity Focus Schools to describe some schools that submit projects. They meet two criteria: at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard measure for school economic need. You can read more at the link about their efforts to address the longstanding inequity in education. |
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project seeks to fund science, math, and literacy projects in public school classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose, a crowdfunding charity founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau.
Every Sunday, we focus on helping to fund projects in neighborhood public schools where the overwhelming majority of students come from low-income households. We welcome everyone who supports public school education — no money is required!
Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects — our series total is 1075! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.