(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Inoculation Project 10/1/2023: Houston Library, Georgia Anatomy [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-01 This week, we’re helping a Houston elementary school librarian get some graphic novels for her students, and a Georgia high school teacher catch her students up on hands-on science, after they missed so much during Covid. 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. This was our project #2 last week, and it’s ready to move up and be completed very soon! Ms. L’s Houston elementary school library needs a set of graphic novels that kids want to read. PROJECT #1 Project: Refreshing Our Bulldogs School Library: Part III Resources: Help me give my students additional brand-new library-bound books of well-loved children's titles and more! Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Vera Escamilla Elementary School, Houston, Texas Total: $200.19 Still Needed: $ 117.54 $92.54 Project description by Ms. L.: With a robust school library's collection, students can fall in love with books even more. I am in the process of updating my collection to fill more of the requests from my wonderful students. It has been a journey. The campus is in year five as a newly reconfigured elementary campus, thus bringing a set of challenges. We also recently welcomed the new dual-language program at our campus - we are blessed to be one of the few elementary campuses to offer this amazing program. As a result, I have a wide range of reading tastes - so I am excited to start this series of providing access to popular titles. I am requesting the graphic novel, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, so that they can share with their families and friends! Graphic novels are proven to help students grow in their language abilities, especially students in the English Learners program. Students had been asking for this specific title and I can't wait for this project to be funded! DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! The requested books, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, are actually a six-volume series, with reinforced library bindings. They started life as a Marvel comic series, which attracted the attention of Laurence Fishburne. He pursued turning it into an animated series, and Disney ultimately picked it up. This is a Disney short poking fun at the how-to-draw-x style, but it’s a good intro to the main characters, a 13-year-old genius and unwilling superhero, and her pal the hot-dog-loving tyrannosaurus. x x YouTube Video Once again, our sharp-eyed friend Eastern Bluebird has found us a great science project with matching funds available! In a small Georgia city south of Atlanta, never-before-funded teacher Ms. Shands is seeing the ill effects of students having missed out on hands-on learning while attending school remotely during Covid. The 2x matching funds are coming from Bezos Family Foundation: We’re helping more young people realize their potential by championing the science of learning and its application in everyday life. Please join us in giving back to help ensure that students at Equity Focus Schools have what they need this year to learn, grow, and thrive. PROJECT #2 Project: Raising Raiders: Leveling Up Anatomy in a Post Pandemic Class Resources: Help me give my students preserved specimen and models that will show them the structures of the body. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Riverdale High School, Riverdale, Georgia Total: $682.13 (2x matching funds from Bezos Family Foundation) Still Needed: $ 542.13 $492.13 ($247 from us) Project description by Ms. Shands: Since returning to the face-to-face class after the pandemic, I have noticed many of the high school students that I teach have major learning gaps in science because during middle school they attended school virtually. The most notable gaps include the lack of hands-on science knowledge/skills. The county that I work for has, for the coming year, tasked the science staff with getting away from simulation labs and move back to wet and dry labs with actual real life materials. Funding this project will provide my students with some of the tools that will help them to develop dissecting skills and grasp concepts that are essential to fully understanding the subject of Human Anatomy. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! Permit me to urge you not to search YouTube for “forensic dissection kit”. Unless you like that sort of thing. This little video from the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve U. is kind of a Microsoft ad, although they mean it more as an ad for them. It’s pretty much the opposite of today’s project, describing how they’re developing this virtual-reality environment as an innovation in the teaching of medicine. However, the Georgia middle-schoolers stuck home during Covid with crappy internet connections were coming from a far different place than a med student, and getting a far different experience than this state-of-the-art system. x x YouTube Video Our huge project from last week was completed, after weeks of effort by our donors and others, and several sources of matching funds! Project #1, Mr. Reisinger Agriculture Class Set Up: Mr. Reisinger is just starting as a high school agriculture teacher in west Texas, so he needs a great many supplies that his tiny town’s school cannot afford. He writes: I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for your generous donations and the incredible interest you've shown in our classroom. Your contributions have made a significant impact on our learning environment. Thanks to your kindness, we have been able to acquire essential supplies, educational materials, and even some innovative teaching tools that will enhance our students' educational experience in ways we couldn't have imagined before. Your willingness to invest in our classroom goes far beyond the financial support. It sends a powerful message to our students - that there are people out there who care deeply about their education and their future. Your belief in our mission is an inspiration to us all. As we move forward, your continued support will help us maintain and expand upon the positive changes we've been able to make. We are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead and the positive impact we can create together. Once again, thank you for your generosity and for being a part of our classroom community. Your kindness has made a real difference, and we are truly grateful. 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 1054! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/1/2196605/-The-Inoculation-Project-10-1-2023-Houston-Library-Georgia-Anatomy 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/