This week, we’re helping elementary-school classes in Florida and Oklahoma to get books that they need. 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.
Mrs. Brown’s Pensacola fifth graders need books to help them with American history, and I am sure we here agree that students in Florida deserve our help to read books about US History!
As always, many thanks to Eastern Bluebird for her timely project suggestions!
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students a look at the intriguing history of our great country.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Bellview Elementary School, Pensacola, Florida
Total: $170.33
Still Needed: $170.33 $90.92
Project description by Mrs. Brown: My fifth graders are learning about the history of the United States and I have found that we do not have very many books on this topic and the ones we do have have been well used and need to be replaced. My students are so excited about learning about the history of our great county and I want to provide them with the best research materials available.
These books will be a valuable addition to our library and will be used by our students for years to come.
Thank you for considering a donation to my project.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
The Dust Bowl is among the historical events with books in this request. Here’s a clip from Ken Burns’ 2012 documentary about it, narrated by Peter Coyote.
Sasakwa, Oklahoma is a very tiny town out southeast of Oklahoma City, in the Seminole Nation. Ms. Hamm teaches elementary-grades students, even though her school is listed as a high school, because there is only the one school, K-12, in town.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students a library of books and games to help them build their social skills for better interaction.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Sasakwa High School, Sasakwa, Oklahoma
Total: $485.48
Still Needed: $485.48 $406.07
Project description by Ms. Hamm: Everyone wants to be loved, accepted, and feel as though they are making a difference in their community. Teaching students how to do this from a young age, will help everyone around them. My students come from an economically and socially disadvantaged area and would benefit from increasing their knowledge of helping to improve the community in which they live, starting with themselves.
Providing them with an accessible library of character and social skills building books and games, will help them increase their skills needed to become active community members.
Social interaction is vital to building their self esteem and understanding of what being kind, caring and human is in making a better world.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
This requested book is read here by a guy who adds a little off-text narration, but that is needed because the point of the story is carried by the wordless second illustration for each scenario.
Both our projects from last week were completed, including the one that would have failed if it were not funded that day! Many thanks to our phenomenal readers!
Project #1, Amazing Literacy Through New Books: Mrs. Unsell teaches a California classroom of elementary-age special ed students with a wide variety of needs. She requested a selection of books her students will enjoy.
At this writing, Mrs. Unsell has not seen the good news. We’ll have her note when it’s available!
Project #2, A Chain Reaction: Mrs. Heath teaches fifth grade in North Carolina, and she wanted 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.
She writes: Thank you so much for your generous contribution to this project. Because of your help, this STEM chain reaction building kit will inspire our students to creatively problem-solve collaboratively. They will work together to build a course that the marble must be able to complete. What a wonderful way to build needed skills! Thank you again for your help with this project!
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 1074! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.