The 2010 Education Foundation GRANTS AWARDED
Little Bay Primary
Title: Empowering Students with 21st Century Tools
Applicant(s): Christina McDaniel, Sheila Ochoa
School: Little Bay Primary, Kindergarten
Educators Impacted: 12
Students Impacted: 240 per year
Description: This grant will provide digital cameras and one MP3 listening center for each kindergarten classroom. Students will learn to take pictures and videos and use the MP3 player for listening and recording. They will apply these skills across the curriculum to document their thinking, provide evidence of their learning, and communicate with others. These tools will engage our students in learning in ways other educational tools cannot. The equipment will be particularly valuable to those students who come from economically disadvantaged households that do not have and cannot provide these valuable learning tools.
Amount: $4,397.64
Live Oak 1-3 Learning Center
Title: Getting Our Hands On Social Studies
Applicant(s): Nicole Garcia and Amanda Lizcano
School: Live Oak 1-3 Learning Center, Grade: 1
Subject: Social Studies/General Education
Educators Impacted: 12
Students Impacted: 240 per year
Description: This grant will provide a hands-on approach to teaching social studies concepts and non-fiction literature. These specialized resource centers include replicas of important symbols and graphic organizers that help students visualize the information they are learning and apply a higher level of thinking skills, like mapping, which is a difficult objective for students across multiple grade levels. These centers would bridge the gap in social studies by providing supplemental, hands-on activities that would engage the at-risk and mainstreamed students and act as enrichment for advanced or gifted learners who could explore topics more in depth.
Amount: $3,718.74
Title: Math Manipulators: Making Meaningful Math Connections with Hands-On Activities!
Applicant(s): Amy Kautz, Candice King, and Erin Cruzan
School: Live Oak 1-3 Learning Center, Grade: 2
Subject: Math
Educators Impacted: 10
Students Impacted: 500 per year
Description: This grant will provide every child the opportunity to learn at his or her own pace in order to be successful with each math objective. Math Manipulators is a hands-on, manipulative-based approach to learning. These rotating stations provide more opportunities for teachers to work one-on-one with struggling students and to offer advanced and gifted students a means to apply their knowledge and develop their problem solving skills through the use of enrichment activities. These rotating stations not only engage students in learning, but also reinforce the fundamental skills that are essential for student success at each grade level.
Amount: $4,420.48
Title: Gains Through Games
Applicant(s): Candace Ochoa, K’trinia Saegert, Leasa Harrington
School: Live Oak 1-3 Learning Center, Grade: 3
Subject: Math
Educators Impacted: 14
Students Impacted: 230
Description: This grant will provide TEKs-based games, activities and investigations that develop, reinforce, and extend student knowledge. These game-based activities will engage students in learning strategies that target problem solving, strategic thinking, and logical reasoning, objectives on which our students have consistently low scores, yet need in order to be successful problem solvers now and in the future.
Amount: $689.85
Title: Netbooks at Live Oak
Applicant(s): Geary Smith, Stephanie Russell, Jessica Picarazzi
School: Live Oak 1-3 Learning Center, Grades: 1-3
Subject: Technology, all core areas
Educators Impacted: 34 +
Students Impacted: 700 per year
Description: This grant will provide a Netbook traveling lab with 30 Netbooks, cart, and wireless access to all students at Live Oak. This traveling lab would allow all teachers more opportunities to incorporate technology into their classrooms and broaden and enrich their curriculum with technology skills so vital to functioning in today’s world.
Amount: $8,000.00
Fulton 4-5 Learning Center
Title: PING into ACTION
Applicant(s): Kimberly Keister, Trista Kaiser
School: Fulton 4-5 Learning Center, Grades: 4-5
Subject: Physical Education
Educators Impacted: 4 per year
Students Impacted: 450 per year
Description: This grant will provide students with an exciting/entertaining way to increase physical activity and reduce childhood obesity. PING will foster in students a lifelong desire to lead an active, healthy life via table tennis, which is one of the best aerobic activities for children because it increases heart rate, activates a child’s metabolic system through periods of intense activity, and has a profound impact on the overall health and well being of children. It is a fun, exciting method for motivating students to get engaged in learning and to stay involved in healthful activities.
Amount: $5,589.20
Title: Seeing is Believing!
Applicant(s): Quynh Cao
School: Fulton 4-5 Learning Center, Grade: 4
Subject: Reading/ELA
Educators Impacted: 40
Students Impacted: 500 per year
Projectors to stimulate students’ thinking and reasoning skills. Teachers will be able to connect, stimulate, and scaffold students’ active learning and offer them opportunities to explore a variety of learning styles and to become engaged in current events. All students would use the equipment, but at-risk and mainstreamed students would be targeted with intervention strategies that would encourage more active discussions and provide a more engaged classroom environment.
Amount: $4,600.00
Rockport-Fulton Middle School
Title: Author of Memories - 2
Applicant(s): JoAnna Decker
School: Rockport-Fulton Middle School, Grade: 7
Subject: English Language Arts
Educators Impacted: 3
Students Impacted: 250
Description: The prospect of seeing one’s writing published for all to see and read is an exciting aspect of the learning process. Like the athlete who sees his exploits and statistics printed in the newspaper, the writer values what he has written and wants his endeavors available for all to see and read. Very few writers are content to just write for themselves; they are interested in having their works published for posterity. This project will encourage students to become better writers, increase their love of writing, increase self-esteem when dealing with personal expression and to become an “author”.
Amount: $990.00
Rockport-Fulton High School
Title: MAXA III: The Expansion
Applicant: John Owen (+Fulton and Middle School math teachers)
School: Rockport Fulton High School, Grades: 5-8; 11-12
Subject: Computer Science/robotics
Educators Impacted: 8
Students Impacted: 100 per year
This grant money will help the MAXA program grow for the third year in a row to accommodate up to 100 students. Funds will purchase the additional supplies needed for the extra students and will add resources to the MAXA library.
Amount: $3007.64
Title: Aransas County Community in Education Art Project
Applicant(s): Jody Summers and Katie Clyburn
School: Rockport-Fulton High School, Grade: All levels
Subject: Art
Educators Impacted: 2
Students Impacted: 50 per year
Description: Using art as the catalyst, this grant would help Rockport Fulton high school students become life-long learners by collaborating with the local art community and making connections between education and its real-world application. The Aransas County Community-in-Education Art Project will partner the Rockport Center for the Arts and its local artists with teachers and students in high school art classes to create a permanent student art exhibit that will beautify the campus and provide a venue for encouraging parents and other members of the community to visit, volunteer, and support local school programs. Coordinating with their teachers and mentors from Rockport Center for the Arts, students in art classes at Rockport Fulton High School will design, create, and install a thematic art mural at the high school. Local artists will assist students in applying the knowledge and skills taught in their art classes to produce a permanent work of art for the school and the community. This project will engage students in learning, encourage students to take pride in their school, give students an opportunity to show their work to the community, and develop in students the personal and speaking skills they will need to present their work now and in the future. The project itself will help them learn to work collaboratively on projects, build portfolios of their work, and use interpersonal and technology skills to bring groups to a consensus on project details.
Amount: $7,500.00
