My students come to my classroom without the knowledge of how to conduct the scientific process. They are very excited about learning with hands-on science, but their materials are limited.
Most of my students have low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Many of these students' parents can not afford to take their children to a hands on museum or enroll them in summer science at a local college. The class has 66% of students receiving free lunches. Most of their science experience comes from my classroom.
My Project
The materials purchased will be linked to the Arkansas and Common Core curriculum. I plan to teach ecosystems and food webs (LS 4.5.14) by dissecting the owl pellets. The butterflies will show the life cycle in an ecosystem (LS 4.9.5) as students study and chart the process. The foam will show students the examples of physical changes and contrast them to chemical changes (PS 5.5.5). The states of matter kit will show several way to compare and contrast chemical and physical changes. The plant kit will help with the terrarium building in the classroom. They will observe (NS 1.5.1) and conduct investigations about the carbon dioxide-oxygen cycle in the ecosystem (LS 4.5.9). The graduated cylinder will help demonstrate density of objects.
With the materials this grant provides, my students will be able to get excited about learning science.
They will have hands-on activities that they can enjoy, learn from, and pass down to their children. Making science more personal for each student allows them to enjoy learning. This is my goal for this project. My students with special needs will benefit greatly because of the concreteness of the lessons.
A child (and their teacher) excited about learning has an everlasting impact!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Davis and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.