This week, we're helping to provide hands-on materials for science and math classrooms in rural North Carolina, in part because of this:
(video link)
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.
Let’s finish this project for a never-before-funded, rural class of North Carolina 3rd-graders study STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Math)!
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students the opportunity to learn creative and critical thinking skills with STEAM activities like KEVA blocks, visual tangram puzzles, and construction kits.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Candor Elementary School, Candor, North Carolina
Total: $178.87
Still Needed: $78.87 Completed! Thank you! Please see next project.
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Trogdon:
My Students: I teach in a rural third grade classroom with a diverse student population who wants to learn so many things, but due to the economic status of the families and community, we often lack experiences that are needed to build background understanding and engage students in activities that will keep them interested in learning for years to come.
Some of the goals my students have set for themselves this year include: reading 2 million words by Christmas (this is one student!), researching a rock collection to identify what has been found, and getting used to using their own laptop.
My Project: I would love to integrate the constructor sets into my math centers to help students understand geometry, area, and perimeter. Letting them create two-dimensional and three-dimensional figures will help those who struggle with the differences between these concepts.
I think my students would love the Dogpile and Catstacks games for visual problem solving and I would love to apply the geometric names to the figures to write about what images were created from composing the shapes.
Clumsy Thief will be a great chance to sneak in the needed fact fluency practice of adding within 100.
While the other resources we would love to add to our classroom are heavily based in math concepts, I would love to literally and metaphorically build a greater teamwork and critical thinking with the KEVA block kits.
I would love to see my students initially struggle with all these new resources and be able to be there to watch and cheer them on to dig deep to succeed!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Some school classrooms still need help after Hurricane Florence — this middle school had to relocate their 7th- and 8th-graders to the primary school. So let’s also help provide supplies for this never-before-funded science class in rural North Carolina.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students the opportunity to expand their learning through hands-on experiences. The Energy and Forces and Motion Learning Curriculum Modules will be a much appreciated edition to classroom instruction and understanding.
Economic need: More than half of students from low‑income households
Location: Pamlico County Middle School @ Pamlico County Primary, Bayboro, North Carolina
Total: $320.78
Still Needed: $220.78 $63.72
Teacher’s Comments from Mr. Hampson:
My Students: As a middle school Science teacher, I have the wonderful opportunity to engage my students with a great deal of hands-on, 21st Century styled instruction. We are located in Eastern North Carolina and are a Title I School. After Hurricane Florence hit us last September, our school was flooded with upwards of four feet of water. This natural disaster did not knock us out, or even keep us down. Our staff and, most importantly, our students bounced back with vigor. Our sixth graders were moved to the elementary school and our seventh and eighth graders were relocated to the primary school for five months.
The effects of Hurricane Florence were far-reaching in our school and community at large.
Many of the supplies and basic necessities were damaged or destroyed. Our students have always demonstrated great interest and eagerness to learn about the world around them. Hands-on learning, especially in Science and Technology, is an effective, research-based approach to meaningful and integrated instruction and our students have shown growth and learning using these methods. Our students deserve every opportunity to enjoy the benefits of free, public education with all the resources that should be allotted. Thank you!
My Project: My experiences as a lifelong learner and educator have shown me 2 certain things: 1) A teacher can only verbally explain so much and 2) Learning can be interactive and fun. Long gone are the days of reading a textbook and memorizing facts, theories, laws, and definitions. Although the a valuable part of instruction and learning, what good is reading about something and not being able to witness the practical applications through the use of hands-on, engaged activities through meaningful and rigorous delivery? Answer: you are really only tapping into a portion of your class's potential.
The curriculum modules for Forces and Motion and Energy will assist us in making great strides in furthering an understanding of topics which are, at times, difficult to grasp without the aid of visuals and manipulatives.
The students would be blessed to have the opportunity to work with these products and align them with their core instruction.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Thanks to the generous assistance from our donors, both of last week’s projects were completed! Here are the teachers’ thank you notes:
Circuit Bugs and Bouquets (2 thank you notes)
1) I cannot say thank you enough for all of the support everyone has shown by donating. My students are so excited to work on these projects! When I had originally set up my donors choose page, I had no idea that my project would get funded so quickly. I appreciate you all so much.
2) From the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you so much for your donations to my classroom. My students absolutely loved getting to play with the circuits. The girls thought that the bouquets were "Sooooo pretty!"
When I told my classes that our first project had been fully funded, they would come into my room each day afterwards asking if the supplies had arrived in the mail yet. I can honestly say it felt like Christmas opening up the boxes with them.
I appreciate each an every one of you.
With gratitude,
Mrs. Henderson's STEM
A Closer Look at Cells
Thank you so much for your generosity to fund my project . My students are very excited about the new microscopes. Rest assured that we will put them to good use and will take care of this valuable resource in the years to come.
Dailykos thank you for featuring my project.
More power to y'all!
With gratitude,
Ms. Rodriguez
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 774! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.