(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Inoculation Project 6/2/2024: Science Magazines, Science Summer Camp [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-02 This week, we’re helping two middle-school teachers, one in Louisiana and one in Texas, fund some science magazines and a summer enrichment program, respectively. 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 this week, and it’s from a never-before-funded teacher (as is project #2). Ms. Albin is a science teacher working on a library science graduate degree, and she would love to get some exciting new science content into the library at her Baton Rouge school! PROJECT #1 Project: STEM Magazines in Our Library! Resources: Help me give my students access to STEM reading material in our school library! Science magazines subscriptions, in digital and print versions, will encourage reading and science exploration. Scholastic's Science World and SuperSTEM have current real-world content. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Southeast Middle Magnet School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Total: $282.59 Still Needed: $ 171.71 Completed, thank you! Please consider project #2 below. Project description by Ms. Albin: These STEM magazine subscriptions will encourage reading and exploring current science topics for 930 middle school students who frequent our school library! Help fill our library with STEM reading material! I am currently a 6th grade science teacher at our school, working on Graduate courses in School Library Administration. I am excited to add more science content to the existing collection. The Scholastic Magazine subscriptions, in print and digital format, could be used by many more students than single books. Subscriptions include a digital library of hundreds of texts, videos, learning games and skills activities, as well as 20 paperback copies each month. Our students will grow in literacy, science, and STEM knowledge through this project. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! These short videos from Scholastic describe the two magazines requested. (They’re definitely not your 1965-vintage Weekly Reader!) x x YouTube Video x x YouTube Video This never-before-funded middle school teacher in a Texas border city can only offer her students science enrichment if they come back for “science camp” in the summer. They are happy to do that, so let’s see if we can get them what they need! We still have help from 2x matching funds 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 and the educators who support them have what they need this year to learn, grow, and thrive. PROJECT #2 Project: Science Enrichment Camp! Resources: Help me give my students a better experience during summer enrichment camp this year! Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Jaime Escalante Middle School, Pharr, Texas Total: $796.84 (2x matching funds from Bezos Family Foundation) Still Needed: $ 463.60 $348.31 ($175 from us) Project description by Mrs. Navarro: The purpose of enrichment camp is to give the students the opportunity to do more hands on learning activities that time was not allotted for during the school year. It's difficult to make time for all the fun enriching activities that I want to do when we have state tests to prepare for with the limited time we have each day. The students are looking forward to coming this summer and will be doing different activities for enrichment camp, such as creating slime, dissecting owl pellets, and doing various Social-Emotional Learning activities with arts and crafts. My hope for the students is that they will be able to see just how fun science is and how it's way more than assignments on their laptop. Any help is appreciated! DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! The National Geographic volcano kit requested is pretty nice, as shown here — it involves making a plaster volcano cone to house the eruption. x x YouTube Video However, this guy feels like going a LOT bigger. If you don’t have ten minutes to devote to this, I recommend skipping to about 7:15, as he gets done pouring the zillion kinds of soda into the “vent” of the giant beach volcano, just in time to see him add the mystery pink stuff (anyone read Greek?) x x YouTube Video I’m happy to say that our first project from last week was completed, with plenty of help from our readers! Project #1, Our Green Garden: Part 3: Mrs. Flores teaches autistic children in an urban New Jersey pre-K, and she knew they and the other students in the school would benefit from gardening. She writes: Thank you so much for your contribution. This project funded faster than I could imagine. We still have five weeks of school so I am excited that these materials will be here before then and we can get started before our summer program begins. I know my students will be excited to grow their own gardens. And she ALSO signed up for a Daily Kos account, so as to very kindly come to the diary last week and say this: I found out about this website today after a couple members of your community donated to my donors choose garden project. I am truly humbled by the kindness shown and appreciate the share. I have a home garden and love to be able to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately the urban city I teach in many families don't have the resources or plots to plant. The city of Camden is considered a food desert by so many because it lacks even a grocery store. The city has mostly bodegas that don't typically carry any fresh fruits and vegetables. We went on a field trip to a local farm last week and the students enjoyed picking strawberries so I was inspired to start this project. My hope is to grow fruits and vegetables with them at school and then send some home with them when they grow. Thank you again. Thank you, Mrs. Flores! We wish you every success! We also have an earlier project to report on, where our timing was wrong to catch the teacher’s note. STEM-tastic Reading: Mrs. G’s North Carolina elementary school needed books, and also materials for activities related to the stories. She writes: Thank you so much for your generous contribution! The students at CSS are going to love these stories and the social-emotional benefits of the lessons that accompany them. Our school is working hard to establish strong, confident children and this project will contribute greatly to our efforts and our vision! Thank you again! ​ ​ ​ ​ 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 1106! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/2/2244182/-The-Inoculation-Project-6-2-2024-Science-Magazines-Science-Summer-Camp?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/