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The Inoculation Project 9/11/2022: Two Fifth Grades [1]

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Date: 2022-09-11

After we’d all weighed in last week, nomandates checked back later and learned that both projects had exhausted their matching funds. It’s wonderful that we were able to push them so far along before that happened! But, we do still have both projects open, with a bit further to go than we’d hoped. And no, we did not somehow plan this deliberately to make everyone wait longer for our 1,000th project!

nomandates started this Fort Worth project last week, and says, Let’s help a teacher who learned during her first year teaching that her students needed physical examples to more fully understand the fossils and ecosystems that they’ve read about and seen photos of.

PROJECT #1 Project: Life Science for Success Resources: Help me give my students great science experiences through real world application and examples! Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: E Ray Elementary School, Fort Worth, Texas Total: $478.55 Still Needed: $ 195.02 $145.02 Project description by Ms. McClellan: I am requesting fossils and aqua sprout garden for my 5th grade classroom to give my students better learning experiences this year. Coming into my second year teaching, I have a much better understanding of the curriculum and materials I will need to help reach my students. This past year I really would have love to show my students physical examples of fossils and not just photographs. This order would allow me to do just that. I am requesting the AquaSprout Garden because when we get to our life science unit, we discuss interactions of living and non-living components of ecosystems! This will give the students the opportunity to encounter these interactions off of the paper and out of the books! DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! x x YouTube Video

We made great progress here for the last couple of weeks, with matching funds, and we will just keep moving forward now! Mrs. Saxon has planned for her fifth-graders in Cleveland to raise plants and animals in a couple of two-liter soda bottles. Everything on her list is a tiny living organism, even the “tank set,” which is actually a collection of 11 little marine critters.

PROJECT #2 Project: Ecosystems Engage and Enliven Learning Resources: Help me give my students a Carolina Touch Tank, Fantail Goldfish, Mosquito Fish, and other aquatic items to support our hands on learning with ecosytems. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Nathan Hale Elementary School, Cleveland, Ohio Total: $867.05 Still Needed: $ 395.52 $345.52 Project description by Mrs. Saxon: My students attend school in a large urban district in Ohio, where 100% of the student body receives free breakfast and lunch. Many of our students walk to school through neighborhoods characterized by boarded-up abandoned buildings and overgrown empty lots. Despite this, my students manage to come to school daily with a passion for education and especially love rising to the task of project-based, inquiry learning. These materials will make a difference in my students' learning because they especially enjoy learning opportunities that allow them to have hands-on experiences and different learning modalities. Having resources for constructing and investigating an actual ecosystem will make a huge difference in my students' learning. My students will get to extend learning beyond the textbook by participating in a STEM activity in which we construct a pop bottle ecosystem complete with live mosquito fish, snails, pillbugs, and aquatic producers. We would first start out by using our available technology to research each of the main organisms that we will handle. Next, students will contribute by donating/recycling empty 2-liter pop bottles. Students will build the terrarium by utilizing one of the bottles. Inside the terrarium, students will grow grass, mustard, and radish seeds. They will use daily journals to record observations and measurements, as insects and abiotic materials are slowly introduced to the environment. They will use the other pop bottle to make the aquarium portion of the ecosystem. Aquatic plants and organisms will be added and observed as well. Finally, the students will connect the land and water containers to make a complete ecosystem. We will use the touch tank organisms and goldfish to make predictions, test theories, and further extend our knowledge. This project will significantly help my students understand how all organisms (big or small) are connected within an ecosystem. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! This was the best demo video I could find on what the project to be built is like. x x YouTube Video These little “mosquito fish” are one of the organisms that will be moving to Cleveland. x x YouTube Video

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 992! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/11/2122092/-The-Inoculation-Project-9-11-2022-Two-Fifth-Grades

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