(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



The Inoculation Project 7/30/2023: School Library & Science Lab [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-30

This week, we’re helping a school librarian in Mississippi who needs books that will interest her students. and a Milwaukee high school teacher whose science students need soil and water test kits. 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 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.

Ms. Dunn is the school librarian in a very small Mississippi town. This project is part 2 of her effort to fill her library with books that will coax her students to become regular readers, and she has some wonderful selections. (The complete list is in the project, as I’m sure you know!)

PROJECT #1 Project: Grow Our Library: Expanding Students' Access to Great Books #2 Resources: Help me give my students more high-interest YA books to spark their love of reading (part 2!) Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: West Tallahatchie High School, Webb, Mississippi Total: $743.94 Still Needed: $ 225.86 $140.86 Project description by Ms. Dunn: As a K-12 librarian, my favorite part of my job is when a student takes home a new book to read, especially when I know it's a good one. Helping this happen on a regular basis, however, is also my biggest challenge: I have so many students who come into the library to look around, only to turn to me and say they just don't like reading, they don't feel that they're adept at it, it doesn't bring them joy, and so on. My goal is to fill our high school library with as much high-interest, high-quality, engaging literature as possible, so that students find themselves excited about reading something— maybe for the first time in a long time. This list of additions to our catalog includes many award-winning, acclaimed additions to the dramatic genres that are by far the most popular in terms of book check-out. The list comprises a mix of fiction and informative, creative nonfiction by diverse authors, in order to help students imagine as well as think and learn. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! An Unkindness of Ghosts is one of the project’s selections. It’s reviewed here by a science fiction website, and sounds very compelling. The author is Rivers Solomon, who is non-binary, intersex, and on the autism spectrum, as is the novel’s main character. x x YouTube Video Trevor Noah on The Daily Show interviews author Akwaeke Emezi, whose autobiographical book, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, is included in this project. x x YouTube Video

We made good progress on this ambitious project last week! Mr. Allen in Milwaukee needs some help with equipment for his high school environmental science students.

PROJECT #2 Project: Exploring Our Environment Resources: Help me give my students the equipment to study their environment and the impact of human activities. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Total: $916.13 Still Needed: $ 780.25 $695.25 Project description by Mr. Allen: Our Environmental Science students at WCLL are excited to learn about aspects of the environment they we unaware of. Using the materials listed in this project students will examine factors that affect water quality and soil quality. Using water samples collected from the nearby Milwaukee River students will identify chemicals that may be present in the water samples. They will use a sample of soil from a local park to examine pollutants that may be present in it. Students will track those chemicals to pollution sources such as vehicles, industries, or other sources. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! This water test kit is one of the items requested. x YouTube Video The videos I saw about soil pollution were all depressing, so here is a story about compost in North Carolina. I was very interested in the compost “farm” and its collection service! x x YouTube Video

Our main project from last week was completed, with plenty of help from us! Project #1, Please Help My Brilliant Students Acquire New Vocabulary: Mr. Picozzi’s fifth grade class, in a tiny North Carolina coastal town, needed resources to help them expand their vocabularies. He writes: Thank you so much for the incredible generosity that you have shown towards me and my brilliant students that I am fortunate to teach. I am so excited to receive these vocabulary resources which will have a tremendous positive impact on my students. Exposing my students to adventurous vocabulary not only will improve their reading skills and comprehension, but also their expressive oral vocabulary which I know my 5th grade students love to do and show off the 'fancy' words that they know. You have all made a huge positive impact by donating your hard earned money to our project, and myself and my students are incredibly thankful for your generosity.

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 seeks to fund science, math, and literacy projects in 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 1046! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/30/2184078/-The-Inoculation-Project-7-30-2023-School-Library-amp-Science-Lab

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.