(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Inoculation Project 12/10/2023: Engineering and the Polar Express! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-10 This week, we’re helping two Texas teachers: a middle school class needs an innovative design/building set, and an early-grades class hopes to read The Polar Express this month. 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 teacher in a Dallas-area middle school would like her students to have a very versatile set of elements for designing and building objects with moving parts. PROJECT #1 Project: Build and Create Resources: Help me give my students the tools necessary to build various structures as they work to solve problems. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Education Vanston Middle School, Mesquite, Texas Total: $172.76 Still Needed: $ 139.24 $90.71 Project description by Ms. Brown: We are looking to add more Sphero Blueprint pieces to our classroom resources. This new tool allows us to learn about building simple structures and adding components that allow our designs to spin and move. These Blueprint pieces are vital to helping students create prototypes and solutions to various challenges we are exploring this season with our competitive robotics. In addition, these pieces will help students learn and create moving forward. Students can reuse these pieces in various contexts and challenges to foster creative thinking and problem-solving skills. These will add additional hands-on materials for our future engineers to work with! DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! This short video from the manufacturer gives you an idea of the kinds of building elements requested in this project. x x YouTube Video Mrs Gamboa would love for her class in border city Brownsville, Texas to read The Polar Express for the holiday season. But her project’s been sitting for a bit without any action, so I thought it would be nice if we could help her get her books in time. We have the help of 2x matching funds from H-E-B Read 3: As a #TeachersCan partner, H-E-B Read 3 is thrilled to support Texas teachers in appreciation for their hard work this school year. PROJECT #2 Project: The Gift of Books Resources: Help me give my students the Polar Express 30th Anniversary Edition book to read this Christmas. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Bruce Aiken Elementary School, Brownsville, Texas Total: $345.28 (2x matching funds from H-E-B Read 3) Still Needed: $ 345.28 $229.99 ($115 from us) Project description by Mrs. Gamboa: My students enjoy reading books, making connections, and using their prior knowledge while reading. The Polar Express book is a wonderful book to begin our holiday season and to reinforce reading skills already introduced. This book will be read aloud and discussed with my students. Then, we will be working on several activities with the Polar Express book during the last week of school before our winter break. The Polar Express book will be a fun keepsake for my students to treasure. This book will not only be a fun keepsake, but will continue fostering my students' love for reading and help them continue to enjoy independent reading. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! Here’s the trailer from the 2004 Robert Zemeckis animated film, which starred Tom Hanks in multiple roles (most prominently, the conductor aboard the Polar Express). x x YouTube Video Our projects from last week were completed: many thanks to our fabulous readers! (And also to the matching-grant organization!) Project #1, Biology Broken Down for Reluctant Readers: Mrs. Gueller’s high school biology students in Gulf-Coast Texas needed some extra help, and she felt a popular supplementary book would do the trick. She writes: Thank you very much for your gracious donations! I am always grateful for amazing donors like you. This will definitely help me with all my reluctant readers. This platform has always helped me to build my classroom with reading choices for my reluctant and struggling students. I always try to find materials that will benefit them! Project #2, Knowledge Thirsty Students Need Books!: Mrs. Bevill teaches middle-school reading in Oklahoma, and she wants her students to have a chance to read some recent fiction that will broaden their perspective a bit. She writes: Thank you so much for your generosity! My students will be beyond thrilled that you helped make a difference in their lives. Many of these kids struggle to realize that they have folks in their corner and that they *care* about them. Having donors across the country whom they have never met so graciously donate to our classroom will touch their hearts in more ways than you can imagine. I cannot wait to see the looks on their faces when the books make it to their hands. I am deeply grateful to all of you for helping me achieve this goal for my students. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you ❤️. 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 1067! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/10/2210739/-The-Inoculation-Project-12-10-2023-Engineering-and-the-Polar-Express?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web 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/