The following STEM grant application is available to provide up to $500 for your classroom’s STEM-focused project. In order to qualify for grant funding, you will need to present a case for the need for funding, provide an overview of your classroom and students, and outline how you will use the funds. As a component of funding, we are also interested in you or your classroom “paying it forward.” You will explain how you will use the project to help others, or how you will share what you are working on so that others can use it, too.
Your name: Mr. Quaranta
School: Sabin Middle School
Address: 1420 Austin Bluffs Pkwy, Colorado Springs, CO 80918
E-Mail: kquarant@uccs.edu
I had the opportunity to teach at Sabin Middle School this year in Ms. Forget’s seventh grade science class. The most interesting part of the way Ms. Forget taught was that she has a technology driven class. This means that each student has their own iPad that they utilize to perform daily tasks and projects in the classroom. Funding is in short supply due to the school being in District 11. This is why I believe a grant to this school would benefit all students in the classroom without detracting from the overall lesson plans.
Now tell us about your students. Who are they? What are they like? What gets them excited? What challenges do they face? Feel free to add anything here that will help us know your students a little better.
The students in our classroom were normal students in the school. Ms. Forget told us in the beginning that the students in this class were actually some of the more gifted ones that she teaches. Each student had their own way of doing things, but it was her emphasis on technology that seemed to bring everything together. She was able to monitor all the students activities and give assignment from a sight called Schoology. This app was the location for all of her assignments and had links to different materials that she posted. This was the main location for our project as well, as the students were the most comfortable with what they know. The main problem that I found with the students was total reliance on the iPad. When they didn’t have the materials with them, they were lost and couldn’t do anything for the day. This was a rare occurrence, and the more common one was that the students didn’t have the iPads charged for the day and had to grab a laptop instead. This took away precious time from the students, as they had to wait while their iPad was charging.
Materials: What materials would help you with your mission? Itemize the materials you are requesting, along with costs and sources for those materials. If desired, you can add pictures of these materials as well. Do not forget to include how many of each item you would need.
10 Anker PowerCore II 20,000
- Capacity — 20,000mAh
- Outputs — 2 ports (18W and 12W)
- Weight — 369g (13oz)
- Price – $50
- Time to fully charge — around 5 hours
According to digitaltrends.com this is one of the better options for what I would like to help with in her classroom. Students are losing a lot of time in the classroom when they are subjected to charging the iPad in a corner and cannot all fit along this. This would be a huge boon to the students as it would allow them to sit in their seats and participate in the discussions without having to go out of their way to get the laptop and log onto it. But this isn’t the only problem as the work they were doing is usually saved to their iPad and not on the computer so continuation of work could always be done without them having to write down ideas and hope that they transfer the work later, which was never the case. Even during our project, research was brought to a halt whenever someone who did the crucial information happened to forget their iPad.
How will these materials make a difference? We want to know that our materials will matter to you and that there is a need for assistance. Use this section to discuss the difference these materials will make in your classroom or club. Also, include other potential sources of funding for you to be able to complete your project(s).
The portable charges are just a logical choice for this classroom which is dependent on their iPads. All of the information that we gave to the students was stored onto these iPads. Without them, the students were at a disadvantage and couldn’t perform the required work for the day. Even with us telling them the importance of getting something down, it didn’t solve our problem of them just blowing us off and doing their own thing. This piece of equipment would help the students who are not fully prepared and would keep them engaged in keeping up with their activities. This would also help in other classes as it would be charging for future use as well and would not be a “charging” period for the students.
In the spirit of paying it forward, tell us how you can take this grant and help others. There are many ways to do this, but here are a few ideas to get you started:
This would be useful in future classrooms for Ms. Forget. This would allow her to keep teaching without interruptions by the students telling her they didn’t charge their equipment and waaste more time loading up a different piece of equipment. This would help other classes as well if they also use the iPads. This would ensure that students in the morning would have a piece of equipment that is prepared for the entire day.