This week, we’re almost to the finish line with a big project to bring a Houston first grade a light table, and we’re also helping an Arkansas math teacher stock her reading corner with stories about math. 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, math, and literacy projects for red-state public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
I’m very pleased to say that this ambitious project, that we’ve been working on for several weeks now, is so close to being completed that we can very likely see that happen today — either because our own donors push it over the finish line, or because our activity makes DonorsChoose show it to others and an “urgent” project.
There are still 2x matching funds from Chevron: Chevron recognizes that supporting racial equity in education is essential. In partnership with DonorsChoose, Chevron seeks to provide students with resources that increase access to STEM opportunities for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous Americans.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students a sensory light table and desk with supplies along with hands-on S.T.E.A.M. learning materials.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Green Valley Elementary School, Houston, Texas
Total: $970.06 (2x matching funds from Chevron)
Still Needed: Completed! Yay!!! Thank you. Please consider project #2, below.
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Perez:
My Project: My 1st Grade Scholars are my Super Heroes! Among the many challenges that they face, they have proven their resilience and remain optimistic and are excited to come to school each day.
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically—Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education”, Martin Luther King.
My First Grade Scholars enjoy coming to school each day and they are eager to learn and if you took one step into our classroom, you can see their curiosity that drives them naturally.
My students attend a Title I school. More than 80% receive free lunch and free breakfast is offered to each student. As their Bilingual Education Teacher, I am their voice and will always advocate to close the learning gap and help my students succeed despite the low socio-economic school population. Their creativity, drive for knowledge, and determination to overcome all obstacles is why they deserve much more than what they have.
These donations will further inspire my First Grade Scholars to do well in their day to day learning experiences as well as motivate them to intensify their learning and discovery through the sensory light table and desk through hands-on learning to explore various math concepts with the math manipulatives provided. The students will also be engaged with the science readers provided and the translucent pattern blocks so they can make endless S.T.E.A.M designs and creations unfold right before their eyes. The much needed storage and desk supplies will house these math and science resources for our classroom so they can last for future 1st grade scientists in our classroom for years to come.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Among the requested tools is a whole collection of items for kids to use on a light table. Ordinary things like letters, shapes, and blocks take on a new dimension when they are transparent and glow in pretty colors against the light surface! The first video is a little ad from the maker of some of the products.
But the uses of a light table don’t end there!
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students books that will help them see math in everyday settings.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: University Heights School of Medical Arts, Jonesboro, Arkansas
Total: $438.82
Still Needed: $301.62 $241.62
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Murphy:
My Project: My students work extremely hard in math class. Even though I only teach math, I do have a reading nook. Students can sit here and read when time allows. I am trying to build my classroom library to include books with a math theme.
Students ask why they need to know how to do math all the time.
By providing them with books that have a math theme, they can see how much math is utilized in our day to day lives. The books I am requesting will help students understand why math is so important.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Read-aloud videos of a couple of the books in this request. I was a bit startled to see that the illustrator of this book was Barbara McClintock, but it’s not THAT Barbara McClintock!
There’s a whole series of books about Sir Cumference and his equally punny relatives and fellow members of the royal court.
Our main project from last week was completed, with the majority of donors having seen it here (including, as sometimes happens, someone who mentions seeing it Daily Kos but doesn’t comment here. That is absolutely fine — we’re all about results, and we thank you, Ken in Maine!)
Project #1, Help a Teacher Translate EMT Instruction: Ms. P. teaches at a Kansas City tech high school. To help her multi-lingual EMT students use earbuds that run software based on Google Translate, she needed an Android tablet
She writes: My sincere thanks for all your support. I am excited to see the look on my students face when they can hear my spoken lecture in their native language. This is going to make a world of a difference in helping my students understand the concepts of EMS in ways that I could never communicate.
DonorsChoose has developed the designation Equity Focus Schools to describe some schools that submit projects. They meet two criteria: at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard measure for school economic need. You can read more at the link about their efforts to address the longstanding inequity in education. |
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project combats the anti-science, anti-education push in conservative America by funding science, math, and literacy projects in red-state public school classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose, 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 projects 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 977! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.