This week, we're helping to provide hands-on materials for environmental science lessons that elementary school students in Mississippi and Arizona will remember. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help these teachers and students by sharing or supporting our featured projects.
The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science and math projects for red-state public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
We’re starting new projects this week. I think that these students will remember and enjoy learning from feeding and watching these redworms in action.
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: My students need a worm composter to see the importance of these small creatures.
Economic need: More than three-quarters of students from low‑income households
Location: Sherman Avenue Elementary School, Vicksburg, Mississippi
Total: $192.06
Still Needed: $192.06 Completed! Please consider long-term project below.
Teacher’s Comments from Mr. Price:
My Students: I work with 25 students from an impoverished area where one hundred percent receive free lunch. Ninety percent of our students live in single parent homes. My school services over 450 deserving children on a daily basis. Our school is a safe haven where our focus is to educate the whole child. These children are very special to me. They come to school with a desire to learn, but things beyond their control hinder them from focusing on academics.
As an educator, it is my job to connect real world situations to standards-based learning.
This can do be done by making connections with things around us.
My Project: During the 3rd Nine Weeks of our school year, I will be introducing my students to the book Earthworms by Claire Llewellyn. This book focuses on the habitat of worms. What better way to incorporate a STEM with reading. By allowing the students to care for the worms, this will spark their interest in careers in STEM.
By having the worm composter in the classroom, it will introduce my students to the importance of decomposers in the food web as well as the concept of recycling through composting.
As students add kitchen waste to this "vermi-composter," they observe the quick and efficient conversion of organic matter into enriched soil components by redworms.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Our long-term project will provide a variety of materials for 4th-graders to measure weather.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: My students need weather devices, such as a barometer, anemometer, and forecast station, so that they can learn to measure weather by reading the instruments.
Economic need: More than three-quarters of students from low‑income households
Location: Sunset Vista Elementary School, Glendale, Arizona
Total: $330.49
Still Needed: $330.49 $189.91
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. LaCasse:
My Students: My fourth grade students come from a Title One school. Many live in apartments and have never had the experience of raising a garden. They are ready for new experiences and love to make observations as they study science.
These students have diverse learning needs.
This project will help to bind them together as a team as they learn about life science. They will need to use skills across the content areas, which will make those skills meaningful for them.
My Project: The materials that I have chosen, such as a barometer, anemometer, and forecast station, will provide the students with the opportunity to measure, read, and interpret data about the weather in Arizona. The first part of the new year is the perfect time of the year for this because we experience a variety of types of weather as opposed to our frequent sunny days with blue skies. There is also a variance in temperature!
Students will have an opportunity to build 3 small weather stations which I will also save for next year's students to use.
This will capture their interest. Using real materials to measure weather will leave them with a deeper understanding than simple videos and worksheets.
The barometer will help them read and interpret air pressure, the weather station will give us a digital format to track the weather, and will be used daily once they learn what it means. I was very excited to find the thermometers. They are perfect for reading practice.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
With a huge assist from our generous donors, both of last week’s projects have been completed. Elementary schoolkids in Woodville, Mississippi will be able to take home backpacks filled with materials to help them learn math. Here’s the teacher’s thank you note:
I am extremely grateful for your generous and constant donations, publications of this project, and overall support of my classroom. I am so excited about these math readiness backpacks. Sending home resources with my students to help them become more fluent with their math skills is essential to my everyday teaching.
Again, your support is greatly appreciated.
With gratitude,
Ms. R.
And Lansing, Michigan elementary school kids — a third of which are from refugee families — will receive sets of games to play and learn STEM.
Words cannot even begin to describe how thankful I am for your contributions. This was my first time using donorschoose and I am blown away that this project was funded in less than 24 hours. I am so humbled and grateful that you would choose to donate so that our classroom can purchase new toys. This will not only impact my students this year, but in many years to come.
I cannot wait to share this news with my students and to see the excitement on their faces. I can only begin to imagine all the learning and creativity that will be taking place in the room.
I am excited to share some pictures of the students using the new STEM toys and will be posting these as soon as the toys arrive.
Many of my students do not have the best home life. I cannot thank you enough for being a shinning light in the lives of my children (students).
With gratitude,
Ms. Ingraham
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project combats the anti-science push in conservative America by funding science and math projects in traditionally red-state classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, 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 two science or math projects in red states, preferably 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 628! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.