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The Inoculation Project 9/17/2023: Preschool and Agriculture Class [1]

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Date: 2023-09-17

This week, we’re helping a Virginia preschool teacher give her students books they can keep, and a Texas high school teacher get set up to begin teaching agriculture classes. 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.

We have a new project today, one with matching funds I hope we can take advantage of. Mrs. Brown wants to give her Norfolk, VA pre-schoolers books that they can take home and keep, because not every home has any. The 2x matching funds are from Unilever: Unilever is proud to help ensure that teachers can count on the supplies they need for their students to thrive.

PROJECT #1 Project: Books for Little People Resources: Help me give my students wonderful children books to keep for their own. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Willoughby Early Childhood Center, Norfolk, Virginia Total: $335.71 (2x matching funds from Unilever) Still Needed: $ 335.71 $181.29 ($91 from us) Project description by Mrs. Brown: Help me provide high quality books for my little friends to keep. Books that are fun, interesting, spark questions and make learning extra fun! I would love to provide my students with brand new, high quality books of their own to keep. So many of my little friends do not have books at home. Reading is critical to their learning. Having their own books to keep will allow them to engage in reading activities at home. Establishing a love of reading now will positively affect their academic growth and progress. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! I’m including this interesting Tedx talk about reading aloud to children, for a rather unfortunate reason. The books requested in this project are board books — you know, those simple books for little ones made of indestructible paperboard pages instead of fragile paper? So it turns out, if you go to YouTube and type “board books”, you get an endless stream of school board meeting videos in which people are demanding that the board remove books. It’s dispiriting; I don’t recommend it. Listen to this woman read a little of Charlotte’s Web instead; it’s much better. x x YouTube Video

Mr. Reisinger is a brand-new junior/senior high school teacher in a little dot of a town a bit southeast of Lubbock, Texas. He’s teaching agriculture classes, and he needs all sorts of equipment, as new teachers will. This project is most focused on soil testing. (“FFA” is “Future Farmers of America”.)

This is quite an ambitious project but, post-match, we’ve made good progress and I think we will make it under the wire, a couple of months away. As nomandates pointed out, Mr. Reisinger’s family members were right there taking advantage of matching to push toward the goal, so it’s clear Mr. R is alert to opportunities and may find another source of matching funds before we’re done.

PROJECT #2 Project: Mr. Reisinger Agriculture Class Set Up Resources: Help me give my students an Agriculture class to remember this school year. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; more than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households. Location: Wilson School, Wilson, Texas Total: $1,139.87 Still Needed: $ 69 2.99 $595.93 Project description by Mr. Reisinger: I am brand new into teaching starting my first year as an Agriculture at a very small 1a school in West Texas serving a predominately minority population with various socioeconomic situations. I teach plant science and agriculture mechanics/wielding to students from 7th-12th grade, I will also be teaching a middle school stem class. I also run the FFA chapter at the same time. My goal is to establish a fun agriculture program while also providing skills that students can later use in their careers. My main goal is to get enough soil testing kits so that students and work collaboratively to gain new skills in soil science and better understand nutrients required for plant growth in the soil. These supplies will help further develop skills in my students to allow them to be better members of society. Help me develop better citizens in my school and community. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! You guys, we need to get this project funded because I am running out of videos about soil testing! This is “Gardener Scott”, a Colorado Master Gardener with a large YouTube library of helpful advice for gardeners everywhere. x x YouTube Video

Last week, our main project was completed even after its matching funds grant had run out! Project #1, Karst Topography in Science: Mrs. Bremner teaches middle school Earth Science in a small Florida city right up against the Everglades. She needed supplies for some great hands-on experiments. She writes: Thank you so much for funding my Karst Topography project on Donors Choose. This year, I am teaching the gifted students Earth and Space Science. It is the first time I am teaching this curriculum, so I appreciate your help tremendously when it comes to purchasing the materials that are needed. Thank you so much!

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 1052! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.

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