This week, we’re helping provide a camera for some Austin elementary schoolkids to document the life cycles of the plants and insects in their school garden. We’re also helping some rural South Carolina schoolkids explore and study their environment. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help 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.
Today’s main project made me smile as I imagined kids running around taking pictures, then gradually becoming more scientific in their approach to documenting growth and changes in their school garden.
Donations to this project are now being matched, thanks to support from the Johnson Ohana Foundation.
The Johnson Ohana Foundation was founded by Kim and Jack Johnson to support environmental, art, and music education. As part of the Johnson Ohana Earth Day Match, qualifying environmental and/or earth day projects, including school garden requests, recycling & composting efforts, and plastic free & waste reduction initiatives will be funded. The Johnson Ohana Foundation believes strongly in fostering environmental stewardship and service learning opportunities in the classroom.
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students a camera to capture all the colors of our school garden. "Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy" Annie Leibovitz.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Galindo Elementary School, Austin, Texas
Total: $548.71 (2x match offer)
Still Needed: $548.71 $337.76 ($169 from us!)
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Merino Gomez:
My Students: There are 21 beautiful minds in my class. Most, if not all, belong to economically disadvantaged families.
They are very curious and they love to be outdoors.
They enjoyed doing a project for the Science Fair. We studied the Tropical Rain forest habitat. They have enjoyed learning about plants and animals, and they would like to learn more about the garden of our school and the monarch butterflies that are attracted to it.
Please, help us with your donation to get a camera and study about the growing plants and animals at our school.
My Project: My students are going to learn in the next weeks the life cycle of a plant and of animals. We just need a camera to capture these processes. We will use it mainly during Science lessons, when we will go to the garden and make photographs every day. I am planning to use technology to see the photos and print some of them to study the plants and animals that grow in our school garden.
The donation to this project will help my students understand nature processes in an authentic and meaningful way.
My goal is to teach Science in a creative way, engaging students in hands on activities. I want them to watch how the plants grow and how they attract insects and other animals. I also want to emphasize on the fact that plants and animals depend on each other to survive.
Finally, nature is associated with numerous benefits including better physical, mental, and emotional health. Your donation will help them connect nature and take care of it.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Our long-term project will help a teacher at GrowingMindsinSC’s daughter’s school teach her students to become more observant of the nature surrounding them.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students STEM blueprint mats, exploring squares made from photo mats, exploring environment anchor books, window bird feeder, and wild bird feed.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Hickory Tavern Elementary-Middle School, Gray Court, South Carolina
Total: $391.86
Still Needed: $238.51 Completed, thank you!
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Harrison:
My Students: Our school is in a rural setting. The school is a Title I school and our funds for supplies are limited. My classroom encourages a sense of community and security.
My students are very creative third-grade individuals.
They love to draw, sing, and dance. As a creative individual, I want to enhance their passions for creativity. I feel so blessed to teach such creative minds.
I would like to provide my students with interactive experiences to create new background knowledge for their future.
My Project: In the one small square STEM activity, students take a square-shaped photo mat and observe only what is inside the square. They can take the mat outside for observations, and they can use it to observe small square areas inside, too. Students also will use other senses to hear and smell their surroundings. They can write about what they observed. Next, they will design an environment on the STEM blueprint mats. The blueprint mats support math by using perimeter and area. They will read the different One Small Square books about environments, which are great anchor texts for this STEM project.
STEM activities create pondering moments and moments full of great wonder questions!
As students ponder about environments, we will use these materials to create a discovery window from our classroom. Students look out of the classroom window and write questions and observations about what they see outside of the window. The bird feeder attaches to the window, and it is clear for perfect viewing.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Thanks to a huge assist from our donors, both of last week’s projects have already been completed. Here are the teachers’ thank you notes:
Robotics and Beyond: I am so very grateful for your support of our robotics program. My students work hard and are learning a great deal, not just about programming, but about cooperation and collaborative problem solving. They have come a long way already this year.
They students will have greater opportunity with this expansion kit.
With gratitude,
Mrs. Coleman
Sand-Sational Learning: I am so shocked and thrilled that our project funded. This is a great way to start the week. I can't tell you what this means to me and my students. I told them our project funded and they screamed and screamed. They can't wait to get the Kinetic Sand and start using it to build sight words and to design and create different projects. Thank you for making this possible for us.
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ward
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 science or math projects, 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 741! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.