This week, we’re helping a California special ed class get a great group of storybooks, and a North Carolina fifth grade get a kit that allows them to design wacky chain reactions. 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.
Last call:
- 🕛 If you would like to close the year with more charitable donations than you have so far made, you can donate to DonorsChoose without having to pick out your projects right now. You can purchase account credits here, today, so your donation counts in 2023, and dole out the money whenever you like. (When a year has passed, they will apply any remaining unused balance to their urgent projects list for you.)
California isn’t usual territory for us, but public schools are starved for funds in all sorts of places, when local property taxes can’t keep up with the need. In Bakersfield, Mrs. Unsell teaches a classroom of elementary-age special ed students with a wide variety of needs. She’s requesting a selection of books her students will enjoy. (You’ll notice this is the last week for this project, regardless — it’s running out of time. I think, and hope, it can make it over the finish line, but please know that, in the event it does not, your donations will be returned to your account to use on another project.)
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students new books for amazing literacy instruction.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Evergreen Elementary School, Bakersfield, California
Total: $434.53
Still Needed: $289.24 Completed, thank you! Please consider project #2 below.
Project description by Mrs. Unsell: All of the books in this project will be used in both small group and large group instruction. These books will give my students a hands on experience with new books and will allow me the opportunity to increase the literacy instruction in my classroom. My goal is to create adapted materials for all the books in this project to meet the needs of all my special learners.
My students all have some form of disability and a wide range of educational needs.
The books in this project will go along with digital materials that I will create. The digital materials will give my non-verbal students the opportunity to answer questions about the books that are read to them.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Here’s a reading of another of the books requested — 999 Tadpoles turn into 999 young frogs, and suddenly their home pond just isn’t working for them!
Mrs. Heath teaches fifth grade in North Carolina, and she hopes to give her class a clever STEM kit that allows them to create and test fun Rube-Goldberg-like contraptions that propagate a chain reaction to its conclusion.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students an opportunity to explore chain reactions in this STEM kit!
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Brentwood Elementary School, Fayetteville, North Carolina
Total: $189.59
Still Needed: $189.59 Completed, thank you! Yay! See you next week!
Project description by Mrs. Heath: What better way to learn collaboration and critical thinking than with this exciting STEM kit? Students will learn to work together and solve problems as they have fun creating with this fun set.
Students will get a chance to build different setups and gadgets as they build and rebuild using this kit.
Once they build the set, they can run the ball through the maze they have created to see if it works. If not, they can rethink their design and make corrections. What a great way to practice problem-solving!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Here’s the kit being requested.
And here are the masters of this art form, singing group OK Go, who have built a thing you really need to stay till the end for!
Project #1 from last week was completed: many thanks to our readers!
Project #1, STEM Fun: Mrs. Pittard teaches first grade in a small northern North Carolina city. She wanted materials to create STEM bins, to give her class hands-on activities in the morning and during indoor recess.
She writes: From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You are helping me change lives every day. The impact you have on these scholars is phenomenal. I could not do what I do without supporters like you. May God Bless You! Thank you for donating to my classroom and students! It’s greatly appreciated! ❤️
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 1072! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.