Eudora Schools Foundation awards grants for innovative learning projects
The Eudora Schools Foundation awarded nine grants totaling more than $6,000 last week to fund projects that include a “bike lab” with exercise bikes to ride while reading, a weather lab for making weather observations and predictions, and a radioactivity monitor that can be used for carbon dating.
“We support teachers who are innovative and create an environment to engage our students to realize their full potential,” said David Barnhart, ESF president, in a news release.
The grants are as a result of the foundation’s fundraising efforts and are awarded through the Teacher Excellence Grant program. Since its inception in 2006, the foundation has funded over 41 projects totaling more than $24,000 in classroom grants across the district.
“This would not be possible without the support of the community and the dedication of the board members,” Barnhart said. “We look forward to the positive impact these grants will have on our students.”
All teachers can submit grant requests, which are reviewed and approved by the foundation’s board members. Eighteen applications were received this year and grants were awarded in the following amounts: Eudora Elementary, $1,246; Eudora Middle School, $3,427; Eudora High School, $1,453.
Individual school grants and award winners were presented in a ceremony at each school. Here are excerpts from some of the teachers’ grant proposals:
Eudora Elementary Schools
– Race to the Top Books & Board Game –
allows all EES students the
opportunity to practice much-needed
social
?skills and supports their development
of emotional intelligence. Students
enjoy this game by being able to talk
out social situations, physically
move their bodies and problem solve
emotional scenarios. These skills are
essential in these students becoming
college and career ready. Grant
Winners: Ashley Golay, Cindy
O’Reilly, and Brenda Wiley
– Flash Master – allows third-grade
students the opportunity to work on and
master their math facts based on
their current performance levels with a variety of different
computerized formats. Students are
excited about the technology aspect
with this device and excited about
challenging themselves to beat their
current level. In doing so, students
will be fluent in math facts and thus
equipped to handle more difficult
math problems in the coming academic
years. Grant Winner: Heather Moore
– MP3 Players for WEBS Classrooms –
allows students in this behaviorally
intensive setting to have a digital
library by having MP3 players at
their desk. Students involved in this
setting due to associate disabilities
often possess accompanying deficits
that correlate with said negative
behavior. Reading to students, such
as this, becomes difficult and often
times, near impossible given student
behavior. Allowing students to
interact with technology such as
audiobooks on MP3 Players, they are
much more prone to read for longer
periods and therefore increase their
reading ability. Grant Winner: David
Powers
– Boys Town Books – allows special
education teachers and speech
language clinicians to use these set
of books when working with students
with significant social deficits.
These books are designed to help
younger or more challenged students
to visualize how their behavior
affects self and others. Because
these skills can be shared and
learned in a story format, children
recall the new skills more readily.
Grant winners: Rosemary Pratt, Meghan
Othick, Danielle Medlock, and Teri
Maynard
Eudora Middle School
– Weather Lab – enhances the eighth-grade
science classroom by allowing
students to connect with hands-on
weather
?tools that physically show them the
phenomena they are studying. Our eighth-graders will be actively working
together outside, taking weather
observations with their own tools
with the goal to analyzing current
weather and interpreting their data
to make future predictions. Grant
winner: Paul Kaldahl
– Read & Ride – promotes a school-wide
initiative to increase student health
levels and to elevate academic
achievement in reading through a
“bike lab.” The Read & Ride program
consists of a room of exercise bikes
for class-wide use. Other schools
with Read & Ride labs have seen
dramatic results including higher
reading scores, lower Body Mass Index
levels, and significant increase in
reading interest. Grant Winner:
Mitchell Tegtmeier
– Algeblocks – allows middle school
students to learn and
understand math concepts more easily
with a hands-on approach. This would
allow students who may have
difficulty with algebra concepts to
conceptualize, visualize, and
manipulate these blocks as another
pathway to learning the material.
Grant winner: Rebecca Clark McMullen
Eudora High School
– Vernier Monitor – enables high school
physics and chemistry students to
learn and understand more about
nuclear processes. One example of a
classroom application is to have
students use the radioactive monitor
on their own skin to see live
readings and better understand how
carbon dating is used to determine
the approximate age of organic
materials. Grant winner: Morning
Pruitt
– Wacom Intuous Drawing Tablets –
provides high school science students
the ability to use technology to
promote a more kinesthetic and
creative learning style to interact
with course material in a way that is
more meaningful and relevant to them.
Instead of simply filling out
worksheets and labeling diagrams,
students will have chance to create
their own representation of
structures and processes that are
discussed in class. Grant winner:
Eric Magett