This week, we're taking advantage of a new 3x match offer that is helping students who evacuated to Florida due to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. As always, our focus is on science and math 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.
CA Technologies and the DonorsChoose.org community are partnering now to triple donations: Donations to these projects are now being matched, thanks to support from CA Technologies. Our community is proud to support students displaced by Hurricane Maria so that they have the resources and supplies they need to start fresh at a new school.
This is the first project that Ms. Castor has ever submitted for funding. And she came up with an alliterative title for her project :-)
PR PROJECT #1
Resources: My students need math manipulatives like fraction tiles and ten frames to make concrete models for addition and subtraction.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Sadler Elementary School, Orlando, Florida
Total: $807.13 (3x match offer)
Still Needed: $623.60 Completed! We’ll be back on Sunday with more great projects!
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Castor:
My Students: As a teacher in a low-income/high poverty school, my students are faced with several challenges both in and out of the classroom. Despite the many challenges they face, I try to keep things simple and provide my students with creative and meaningful learning experiences.
Facts and figures can be very daunting, my job is to make math engaging and easy to comprehend.
My goal is to help make math more enjoyable for our third, fourth and fifth graders so they are able to focus on the new concepts being taught in class.
My students are eager 21st century learners who want to make a difference in their school communities. They are loving 4th and 5th graders who just want love and support.
My Project: My students are amazing little people who want so much to learn and grow. After being devastated by Hurricane Maria, our students have come to us with open hearts and willing attitudes, however they are without the necessary things needed to feel like the awesome mathematicians they are.
These supplies will help make math more understandable to students who are not as familiar with a new language.
They are excited about learning, which in turn inspires their teachers and peers . Theses supplies will give the students a good visual representation of math concepts that can sometimes be very confusing. The ten frames will help students compose and decompose numbers as the value is quantified. It serves as a visual representation that can be manipulated to do more complex problems. The rainbow fraction tiles help foster muscle memory as the students have a tactile-kinesthetic resources that allows them to solve fractions. Each rainbow tile correlates to a different quantity which will allows for my students to recall them with ease later.
The colored pencils will help the students do multi-step problems when solving real world mathematical problems. In addition, it will be infused cross-curricularly with science, where the students will be exposed to inquiry based learning and record their new knowledge through labeling. Part of learning is through revising their knowledge in their interactive notebooks. Students will be able to color code this learning so that permanent cognitive connections are made. Lastly, the colored pencils will help our scholars delve further into "close reading". They will be able to locate vocab words, definitions, and pose examples by using specific colored pencils for each.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
I chose this one because the teacher is trying to make learning fun.
PR PROJECT #2
Resources: My students need lab coats and goggles to use while performing multiple science experiments in class.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Sadler Elementary School, Orlando, Florida
Total: $354.84 (3x match offer)
Still Needed: $315.31 Completed! Thank you.
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Aponte:
My Students: Eager and energetic children enter my classroom every day. All of my students are Hispanic and have not been in a traditional classroom setting prior to Kindergarten. It is my goal to reach and teach every child who walks through my door.
We are a Title I school with the largest bilingual population in Orange County, Kg-4th grade.
All of our students receive free lunch. I am determined to meet the needs of all my students and provide a rich curriculum and classroom culture in which all will thrive.
Recently, with the devastation of Hurricane Maria, our school has been receiving an influx of scholars from Puerto Rico. These students are precious and an added bonus to our classroom community. I am hoping to implement new ways of helping reach them across all content areas, while being sensitive about their current state back home.
My Project: How many kids love to play dress up? They love getting into their favorite storybook or movie character even when it's not Halloween. After receiving new students from Puerto Rico, I would like to motivate them and to create that same level of excitement with my students when it comes to Science! We get to perform many different experiments throughout the year so why not dress up like a scientist when we are acting like a scientist.
These lab coats and goggles will not only keep us safe during experiments but make it more engaging and fun!
What better way to get students involved and excited about science than becoming a scientist themselves.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Update: Both originally posted projects were completed in 2½ hours, so I’ve added a 3rd one that qualifies for the 3x match offer.
PR PROJECT #3
Resources: My students need one Nasco Magnetic Math Materials Kit with Board and one Polydron Geometry Classroom Set for our classroom.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Orchard Villa Elementary School, Miami, Florida
Total: $550.09 (3x match offer)
Still Needed: $499.27 Completed! Thank you.
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Frazer:
My Students: I teach 4th grade math, science and social studies at a historically integrated elementary in Liberty City that holds a great deal of Black History. The Supreme Court ruled for school desegregation in May 1954, but it wasn’t until 1959 that Miami-Dade County schools admitted African Americans to our school (Miami Herald, 2018).
My students come from low-income homes that were affected by Hurricane Irma and now we have started welcoming students that were displaced by Hurricane Maria.
Even though they may lack the basics needed to be successful in school, as their teacher, I do my best to give them the tools and knowledge they need to overcome these challenges.
My Project: Recently, I visited a math coach's classroom at another school, and he was using manipulatives to teach geometry. Each and every student participated and the lesson was interactive, engaging and fun. Every child was confident when it came to utilizing concepts in geometry by the end of the hour.
In the upcoming weeks, we will be introducing higher-order thinking geometric concepts and I would like to have my students learn the basic concepts with as much fun and gusto as I witnessed in the class that used these manipulatives.
Apart from geometry, the math class set covers Common Core standards in math. Your donation would help my students learn, practice and experience math in a dynamic way. It would bring our classroom alive and ensure that every child participates in the process.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Last week’s project providing K’Nex activities for Puerto Rican students at an elementary school in Miami, Florida was completed with help from a different 3x match offer:
My joy is seeing my kids enjoy learning and having fun doing so. But it's even more wonderful when people like you take interest and support the cause. My students become very excited when they do any hands-on activities and the K'nex is something I thought would not only let them have fun, but they would be learning at the same time. Thanks to all of you for your generous donations and taking interest in my classroom. [….]
And the project that belinda ridgewood thought would be long-term was also quickly completed. Elementary school students in West Virginia will receive supplies to study ground erosion:
I am humbled and amazed at the kindness from Daily Kos readers, and that my project got a huge jump start by being selected as an inoculation project. I'm just here in a little town trying my best to teach my students, and have a bit of fun doing it. Science is important, and our environment is important...I am so thankful that individuals choose to support my effort here. I am also so thankful to my Bradley family. [….] I am confident that this unit is special, I can not bring anything to life in my classroom without support. Thank you ALL for your support. Donors Choose is making a difference for children supporting one classroom teacher's idea at a time.
This awesome teacher also helped our other project:
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 640! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.