The Inoculation Project, founded in 2009 by hyperbolic pants explosion, is a group of Kossacks who gather weekly to combat the anti-science push in conservative America by providing direct funding to science and math projects in red state classrooms. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, an organization founded in 2000 and rated highly by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. Here’s an introductory video about DonorsChoose featuring Michelle Obama and Stephen Colbert. DonorsChoose.org allows you to make direct contributions to specific, vetted projects in public school classrooms, resulting in tremendous and immediate impacts from small dollar donations. Each week, we focus on funding a single small-dollar project at a time, in a traditionally red state classroom and preferably in a high-poverty district. We also carry along a more financially ambitious project as a long-term goal.
THIS WEEK’S MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Four Homdox Digital Mini Hatching 7 Egg Incubators, and one Magicfly Bright Cool LED Light Egg Candler Tester.
School Poverty Level: High
Location: Combs Elementary School, Florissant, Missouri
Total: $223.91
Still Needed: $183.91 $77.14
Expires: June 3, 2016
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Mills:
My Students: The kindergarteners and first graders at my school are diving into life cycles! We would like to provide our students with the opportunity to watch life develop before their eyes. What an amazing experience it would be to see a life cycle unfold before their eyes!
Our students come from a variety of backgrounds in a tight knit neighborhood.
Our students have limited experience with rural life and we would like to provide a hands on experience with a real world connection. Through this experience you will help us provide, our students will develop a better, first hand understanding of the first stages in a life cycle.
My Project: With these four Egg Incubators and LED Light Egg Candler Tester our classrooms will be able to experience first hand the beginning stages of a chicken's life cycle. Our students will be able to observe, discuss and journal about what they are experiencing in the classroom. Through watching the chicken's life cycle unfold the students will be able to make connections to other life cycles such as frogs and butterflies. Students will also be able to take responsibility for another living thing, including what a chicken needs to survive. At this young age students will get to experience hands-on how to care for a living thing.
Through funding this project our students will experience a once in a lifetime lesson first hand.
This project also reinforces our school wide behavior system which encourages students to take responsibility while focusing on the power of their positive choices.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
We'd like to be able to assist both small and large projects. Our hope is to present a new relatively modest project each week, and then feature a more ambitious project with a long-term deadline, so we can chip away at it each week when our main project is completed. Since DonorsChoose has something similar to a "rec list", every time we create a flurry of activity on a project, even if the dollar amounts involved aren't large, we can push the project up that list so it gets shown to more donors outside Daily Kos. In that way, we can help finish projects that may be beyond our means when only our own dollars are considered.
LONG TERM PROJECT
Resources: My students need a variety of magnets like the Dowling Classroom Attractions Level 1 Magnet Kit, 2 Neodymium Magnets, and Neodymium Disc Magnets. They also need 5 Aluminum Alloy Tuning Forks, Pulley Set, Unmounted Optical Lenses Double Convex, MACT Ball Transfer Game, Refraction Block, and a variety of other materials to reinforce their understanding in science.
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Susan Stripling Elementary School, Norcross, Georgia
Total: $749.32
Still Needed: $474.91 $399.91
Expires: Mar 29, 2016
Teacher’s Comments from Mr. Warren:
My Students: A typical day in my classroom consists of students participating in STEM related lab and technology activities. I want all of my students to exceed in the Science and Math subject areas by the end of the year. I tell my students daily that "the only easy day was yesterday."
My school is located in the Atlanta area and has a high population of diverse students from poverty stricken communities.
They are great students that are supported by an awesome teaching staff and administrators that really care. We do receive support from local churches and community supporters, but we can always use more resources. The majority of our students are Latino and they really assist the teachers by educating us about their culture. My school has a warm climate and welcomes everyone with a smile. The school is environmentally friendly and we even have a garden to teach students how to grow their own healthy foods.
My Project: The students will really take advantage of these resources by assisting each other with indoor and outdoor group activities. They will use these resources to build, measure, and practice their math skills. They will also be able to apply the science concepts that they have previously learned to their activity. My students love working with rock collections, so I know they will benefit from learning about the magnetic lodestone rock. They also love learning about refraction, so the refraction blocks would be a great additional resource for them to solidify their understanding of this concept. Students on every grade level love working with magnets and enjoy doing experiments with attraction and repel. I am hoping that these magnets will ignite my students learning even more with these hands on materials.
Donations will improve my classroom environment...but more importantly change the lives of many of my students.
These resources will be an outlet that many of our students need to remain excited about the learning process, and just may what they need to spark a new interest in the field of science. Many of our students do not have these resources at home, so this is a grand opportunity to show the educators what they can do when provided with various, fun resources.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
HOUSEKEEPING
Last week, our main project, Van de Graaff Generator, was completed. A Phoenix middle school class will learn about electricity using their new Van de graaf generator.
See our list of successfully funded projects. We're up to 499!
When projects are not fully funded by their expiration date, donors are contacted by DonorsChoose and asked to choose another project to which to redirect their donations. Occasionally, a fully funded project is called off for some reason internal to the school/teacher, and funding is returned. We have no way of knowing why, but DonorsChoose handles those donations in the same way as for expired projects.
How is the poverty level defined at DonorsChoose.org?
Poverty level refers to the percentage of students at a given school who qualify for free and reduced lunch, which is considered a measure of economic need. To be deemed eligible for free lunch, a student's family income must be within 130% of the poverty line (a max of $29,055 for a family of four). For reduced lunch, the family income must be within 185% of the poverty level (a max of $41,348 for a family of four). Schools with 10%-39% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "moderate poverty". Schools with 40%-64% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "high poverty", while schools with 65%+ of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "highest poverty". For projects submitted from a school where free lunch rate data is unavailable or unreliable, "Poverty Data Unavailable" will appear.
More information:
DonorsChoose.org main page
DonorsChoose.org blog
About DonorsChoose.org
All DonorsChoose.org math & science projects search results
We are in no way affiliated with DonorsChoose.org, or any of the classroom projects presented for funding, except as specifically indicated (for example, when a kossack is the teacher).
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You are welcome to use The Inoculation Project avatar as your DonorsChoose avatar if you wish. If you need instructions for uploading it to your DonorsChoose profile, you'll find them in this diary.