Welcome to The Inoculation Project! This week, we're helping a Detroit middle school create a bird and butterfly wildflower garden, and high school students in the Rio Grande Valley to study STEM through rocketry. 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!
We still have some ground to cover on the projects from last week!
THIS WEEK’S PROJECT
Resources: My students need materials such as fencing, a bird bath and feeder, bird feed and a DVD player to attract wildlife and to improve their knowledge about nature.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Munger Elementary-Middle School, Detroit, Michigan
Total: $375.86
Still Needed: $143.51 Completed! Please consider long-term project below.
Expires: May 26, 2017
Teacher’s Comments from Mr. Boye:
My Students: Our school is situated in an urban setting, and our middle school students are excited about science. I am interested in channeling this excitement into a thirst for environmental education.
I am ready to challenge my students to become stewards of their environment!
Our school is located on a large piece of property, which contains a field of approximately eight acres. I hope to encourage my students to become environmentally aware through on-site and off-site field trips. My students are excited about the projects that we plan to complete, and hopefully, through DonorsChoose.org, we can get the materials we need for these experiences!
My Project: The materials I am requesting will allow my students to make observations about birds and butterflies, and to work to take pride in their school and their community, The students will be using the materials, along with seeds provided by Cornell University to plant and maintain a bird and butterfly wildflower garden outside of our window.
While working to create a wildflower garden, the students will learn how their urban environment is a natural habitat for many plants and animals.
The students will use field guides to identify wildflowers, butterflies and birds. They will use the speaker I requested to practice recognizing bird calls by ear, and they will watch DVDs to learn how to identify raptors (as we attend a Hawkfest event each fall) as well as field and forest birds. As we will be visiting a wildlife reserve, I will also be purchasing a DVD to help in identification of shore birds and wetland birds.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Several teachers at our long-term project’s school are trying to develop a cross-curricular STEM unit for their students, and we thought it would be fun to give them a boost.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: My students need model rockets, engines, launch pads, fin guides, and an altimeter. Students will build the rockets as part of a cross-curricular STEM project that will teach how to measure trajectories, altitude, and engineering variables.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Valley View High School, Pharr, Texas
Total: $664.71
Still Needed: $530.00 $417.35
Expires: July 30, 2017
Teacher’s Comments from Mr. Ochoa:
My Students: I teach at a T-STEM school within a school in a low-income/high poverty school district. My students are faced with several challenges both in and out of the classroom. Despite the many challenges they face, I am looking to always challenge and provide my students with creative and meaningful learning experiences.
My students are eager for new experiences, excited to learn and always willing to work on projects.
They like to create, they love to read, and they crave challenges. Many of them are being raised in single parent households and receive a free lunch based on their socioeconomic status. These things may prevent them from getting ahead early in life and may not provide them with the life experiences many of us see as "typical". From the minute they walk in the door of my classroom I focus on their potential and growth while they are with me. I may not be able to control their home lives, however, I can certainly control their experience during the school day. By doing this in a creative and positive way, I am hopeful to inspire creative learners to continue on a path of academic excellence.
My Project: Being part of a TSTEM campus, students are expected to learn STEM principles in all disciplines. Every item purchased will aid in the instruction of those principles from teaching Newton's Laws of Physics to writing a letter to the astronauts at the International Space Station. These materials will also be used to introduce students (and especially female students) to the field of model rocketry.
This 'hobby' makes a great platform for teaching students mathematics, science, engineering, and technology.
Using these rocket kits and altimeters we can spark the interest of students in rocketry and then go on to have them work on teams and compete in our school's Rocketry Challenge which will not only task them with STEM skills but also with skills in project management, collaboration, and communication.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Our Dollars at Work
Today, we’ll look back at photos from two projects early in 2016. In each case, you’ll find more photos at the link.
In the project Explore the World VR Style!, Mrs. Kelsey’s Kentucky elementary students received six “Google Cardboard” style virtual reality viewers. These are inexpensive VR goggles that allow a smartphone to be inserted and controlled from outside. The phone runs many 3D applications that allow the wearer to “visit” other places, even space!
...One center was "VR Planetarium" in which they were able to fly about space observing the solar system. In this rotation, it was their job to observe the planets and make observations about these planets which led into a more detailed unit on space. We also used "Google Streetview" to explore cities such as New York City and Chicago. This was amazing for my students who had never left Kentucky. They were able to visualize the setting of our read aloud book at the time "Hank Zipzer: Niagara Falls or Does it?" There were several virtual reality experiences afforded to them by you including a virtual erupting volcano, the Jurassic era, a roller coaster, New York Times education videos, and so much more!
Your love for our students and their future inspires me to be a better teacher everyday. To know that my students are believed in and that I am believed in is a comforting feeling and leads me down the road to better teaching. Thank you all again and please know that you are appreciated more than you know!
Mrs. Hetrick teaches chemistry at a Utah high school. She has little budget for lab equipment, and most of her students can’t afford to pay the lab fees that are supposed to fill in for school funding. With 40 pairs of “spectroglasses” and a wide variety of spectrum tubes of different substances, a whole class together can see the spectrum lines that identify elements. The project was Learning Across the Electromagnetic Spectrum.
...My students used these tools to investigate electron transitions within an atom. When they observed a colored line in the glasses, they learned that it resulted from the movement of a specific electron from higher energy level to a lower energy level. They were able to observe several element samples to understand that each element produces a specific spectral fingerprint that can be used to identify them anywhere in the universe. After observing the known samples, they identified unknown samples by comparison.
My students learned a lot of relevant chemistry from these lab tools. When they see a rainbow, a neon light, a red-orange sunset, light from overhead lamps, or light from the sun they will remember its meaning. Your generous donation made this learning possible and the equipment will be used for many years.
Thank you kindly for supplying spectrum tubes, spectroglasses, and a wave demonstrator for chemistry lab.
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!
Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects. The success-list diary now also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose, formerly found in this space.