Welcome to The Inoculation Project! This week, we’ll help a West Virginia elementary class get a giant math game they can all play together. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, an organization founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. If you’re short on cash, don’t worry — we’re glad to see you anyway! And your tips, recs, shares, and so on are a good free way to help, by helping us get on the rec list and catch more eyes. Join us below for all the fun!
THIS WEEK’S PROJECT
Resources: My students need Jumbo 4-to-Score Oversized Game, an engaging game-based activities set that are fun games that build academic confidence in reading and math and promote successful learning. Growing evidence indicates that games allow students to focus well enough to learn better.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Center McMechen Elementary School, McMechen, West Virginia
Total: $281.56
Still Needed: $206.56 $91.56
Expires: Nov 10, 2016
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Zambito:
My Students: The majority of my students come from low income families with limited backgrounds and opportunities to grow as learners. All students receive free breakfast and lunch. Food is even provided for the weekend. They are very polite and very sweet children.
The children enjoy coming to school.
It is a very safe place for them. The staff all work together to make sure every child has the things they need, and they strive to make every child successful in school.
My Project: My students need Jumbo 4-to-Score Oversized Game, an engaging game-based activities set that are fun games that build academic confidence in reading and math and promote successful learning. Growing evidence indicates that games allow students to focus well enough to learn better. Who doesn’t like to play games? Not only are games enjoyable, interactive, and social, but they also work as a teaching tool to motivate and engage students in the learning process. Game-based learning also teaches students to follow directions, make decisions, review concepts, and discover new information.
Peer learning involved in game instruction allows group discussion, cooperation, thinking and problem solving.
Also, game-based instruction encourages teachers to be creative and more effective and helps them identify students who are struggling with the material through observations.
Classroom games, like the Jumbo Connect 4, add flair and student engagement to more tedious, yet necessary tasks like teaching math facts, grammar and spelling rules, building vocabulary or even reviewing for tests. Adding an element of competition motivates and energizes students.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
So that we can help both small and large projects, we usually present a relatively modest project each week, then feature a more ambitious project with a long-term deadline. We can chip away at the long-term project, and our activity can also help push that project up DonorsChoose’s equivalent of our “rec list”, so it is 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 amino acid starter kits to understand how amino acids serve as a building block for proteins.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Hancock High School, Kiln, Mississippi
Total: $537.18 $332.18
Still Needed: $332.18 $267.18
Expires: Nov 9, 2016
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Karl:
My Students: My students are very unique and diverse. Some of my students come from homes of rocket scientists while other students come from homes of unemployed Katrina victims. The students are able to overcome their diversity to make our school a wonderful place. Today when I was in the commons area for break, I saw an empty drink bottle on the floor. I asked a student to pick it up. He picked it up and he saw another bottle, which he also picked up. He then told the student that was walking with him that he can throw the bottles in the recycling bin. I am very proud of the students at my school.
My Project: Amino acids are essential for every metabolic process. It is imperative that students learn about amino acids and how they effect the body. The majority of diseases such as obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, and many more can be traced back to metabolic disturbances.
"People crave laughter as if it were an essential amino acid." Patch Adams
Students will utilize the amino acid kits in order to construct proteins. They will experience how one discrepancy in the sequence can change the function of the protein through a hands-on process. I want the students to acquire a love for learning and a love for science.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project is an effort to combat the anti-science push in conservative America by providing direct funding to science and math projects in traditionally red-state classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, an organization founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. DonorsChoose allows you to contribute to specific, vetted projects in public schools, resulting in tremendous and immediate impacts from small-dollar donations. Here’s an introductory video about DonorsChoose featuring Michelle Obama and Stephen Colbert. Each Sunday morning, we focus on helping to fund one or two science and math projects in traditionally red-state schools, preferably in highest-poverty districts. We welcome everyone who shares our interest — no money is required! Your tip, rec, republish, comment, or share helps bring us more eyes, and besides, we like the company of others who love kids and education. Feel free to post a link or video, or just tell us how your weather is!
See our list of successfully funded projects. The success-list diary now also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose, formerly found in this space.