The Inoculation Project, founded in 2009 by hyperbolic pants explosion, is a group of Kossacks who gather weekly to combat the anti-science push in conservative America by providing direct funding to science and math projects in red state classrooms. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, an organization founded in 2000 and rated highly by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. Here’s an introductory video about DonorsChoose featuring Michelle Obama and Stephen Colbert. DonorsChoose.org allows you to make direct contributions to specific, vetted projects in public school classrooms, resulting in tremendous and immediate impacts from small dollar donations. Each week, we focus on funding a single small-dollar project at a time, in a traditionally red state classroom and preferably in a high-poverty district. We also carry along a more financially ambitious project as a long-term goal.
THIS WEEK’S MAIN PROJECT
Resources: A class for intellectually gifted students needs science materials and books about dinosaurs and fossils to help them discover their world.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Lockard Elementary School, Indianola, Mississippi
Total: $227.11
Still Needed: $227.11 $162.11
Expires: July 9, 2016
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Moore:
My Students: Students learn much more when they are allowed to discover things on their own!!! Using these materials, my students will be able to be real paleontologists!
My students are so smart! They are in a class for the intellectually gifted.
They are not the ones who know all the answers, but are the ones who ask all the questions. They love to explore and find the answers on their own. They are hands-on all the way!
My Project: With these resources, my students will be able to take control of their own learning. They will be able to use these materials to not only read about dinosaurs, but dig up fossils. The books will reinforce the hands-on material in this project. I will set up a center and let my students become paleontologist.
My students will learn things I would not be able to teach them.
They will learn how to find the answers for themselves. This is a skill they will use for the rest of their lives.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
This week, I couldn’t resist adding a project that the teacher and one other donor have been trying to fund.
BONUS PROJECT
Resources: My students need Penguins On Ice, Hide And Seek Pirates, Color Code, and other brain teasers to help them gain critical thinking skills!
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Ida Green Lower Elementary School, Belzoni, Mississippi
Total: $313.48
Still Needed: $98.48 Completed! Thank you.
Expires: August 24, 2016
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Smith:
My Students: My students love to work with their hands! After they have finished their seat work my students are looking for a way to to stay occupied. Right now each one of my students will read until everyone is ready to move on but I would like to add more STEM to our room.
My students go to a Title 1 school and they all come from low-income households.
Many of my students have never played a mind puzzle or brain teaser game. We have one in our classroom and it is the most coveted item! My students dream of having more in our room.
My Project: These resources would be used to help introduce children to STEM and critical thinking. After students finish their work they will be able to get a brain teaser to quietly complete at their seat. These are all pre-differentiated and students of all abilities will be able to partake. For example a game such as "Day And Night" and "Castle Logix" will help students become engaged in an activity that helps them actively grow their brains.
Your donation will help an entire classroom of kids get a head start on critical thinking which they desperately need.
These children will also be able to start their future in STEM which is a needed skill in today's society. Games like Penguins On Ice will help students gain foresight and continue to grow neural pathways in the brain.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
We'd like to be able to assist both small and large projects. Our hope is to present a new relatively modest project each week, and then feature a more ambitious project with a long-term deadline, so we can chip away at it each week when our main project is completed. Since DonorsChoose has something similar to a "rec list", every time we create a flurry of activity on a project, even if the dollar amounts involved aren't large, we can push the project up that list so it gets shown to more donors outside Daily Kos. In that way, we can help finish projects that may be beyond our means when only our own dollars are considered.
LONG TERM PROJECT
Resources: My students need four LEGO Mindstorms kits in order to integrate robotics and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) into our gifted-education classroom.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Cherokee Elementary School, Pascagoula, Mississippi
Total: $1,843.65
Still Needed: $266.76 $196.76
Expires: July 29, 2016
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. P.:
My Students: "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." -Benjamin Franklin My gifted students are hungry for hands-on learning experiences in the classroom! LEGO Mindstorms EV3 are perfect for my gifted students as they learn to be inventors and builders this year.
In my class each week, I teach about 60 gifted students from seven elementary schools in the district.
These students are classified as intellectually gifted, meaning they have an IQ of 120 or higher. My students are very creative and they love computers and building with their hands. Most of my students are kinesthetic learners, they learn best by doing. Many of students are from economically disadvantaged homes. Some have never even played with LEGOs before, much less built a fully-functioning robot or invention with them. If my students don't experience it in the classroom, oftentimes they won't get to experience it at all. I want to give my students every opportunity possible for them to be as successful as possible. Many of my students are extremely intelligent and creative, they just need to be given the proper resources in order to shine their brightest.
My project: With LEGO Mindstorms EV3, my students can build robots and use software to plan, test and modify sequences of instructions from a variety of real life robotic behaviors. Robotics is an exciting way to bring STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to our classroom. STEM is crucial, especially, for my students who want to be doctors, architects, engineers, scientists, computer programmers etc. My students will not only be able to learn how to build and program robots using LEGOs, they can also use the kits to create new inventions to make our lives easier.
I want to give my students every opportunity and experience I can, so that they are fully prepared to reach their goals in the future.
With the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 kits, I will be able to give my students the opportunity to dream big and create fully functioning robots and other inventions.
(From last week: “Thank you for your donation! I couldn't believe that my project was on Daily KOS!”)
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
HOUSEKEEPING
See our list of successfully funded projects. We're up to 512!
When projects are not fully funded by their expiration date, donors are contacted by DonorsChoose and asked to choose another project to which to redirect their donations. Occasionally, a fully funded project is called off for some reason internal to the school/teacher, and funding is returned. We have no way of knowing why, but DonorsChoose handles those donations in the same way as for expired projects.
How is the poverty level defined at DonorsChoose.org?
Poverty level refers to the percentage of students at a given school who qualify for free and reduced lunch, which is considered a measure of economic need. To be deemed eligible for free lunch, a student's family income must be within 130% of the poverty line (a max of $29,055 for a family of four). For reduced lunch, the family income must be within 185% of the poverty level (a max of $41,348 for a family of four). Schools with 10%-39% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "moderate poverty". Schools with 40%-64% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "high poverty", while schools with 65%+ of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "highest poverty". For projects submitted from a school where free lunch rate data is unavailable or unreliable, "Poverty Data Unavailable" will appear.
More information: DonorsChoose.org
We are in no way affiliated with DonorsChoose.org, or any of the classroom projects presented for funding, except as specifically indicated (for example, when a kossack is the teacher).
♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦
You are welcome to use The Inoculation Project avatar as your DonorsChoose avatar if you wish. If you need instructions for uploading it to your DonorsChoose profile, you'll find them in this diary.