This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
CULTIVATING OUR OWN CHOICES
Every year when I ask my students what they think biology is I get the same wide-eyed response, "Dissecting Frogs!" I only wish that were true. We are engaged, but I never see that same excitement again.
My students attend a Title 1 school on the west side of Jacksonville, Fl.
Statistically speaking, they grew up in a region of Florida where 1 in 3 students do not attain a high school diploma and 47% of the population read at an eighth grade level. It would be easy for my students to hide behind those statistics. To use those numbers to lower the expectations and goals that are set. My students have not done that. My students want better, and they know that the road to the future their want is paved with education.
My students approached me about wanting MORE from their science education. They had the content, they knew the notes, but they wanted hands on lab skills. So, together we designed an academic enrichment program that would give them the skills for college that they were currently lacking.
My students come after school and raise their own funds to develop dissection skills.
My Project
Utilizing the specimen and lab tool kits my students will conduct inquiry based dissection labs twice a month. They will cultivate the manipulative skills required for dissection, as well as the diagramming skills to record their progress.
Through these investigations they will learn to approach anatomy using scientific thinking. Learning about how to move from the known to the unknown, and how to identify the basic emergent properties which allow for components to come together to form the greater whole.
This project will give my students the skills required to be nationally, and globally, competitive in science.
It will provide an engaging venue that can inspire and instill science in a way that text book will never be able to do. In addition, they will finally be exposed to the "biology" that they've seen in film and media.
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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 Ms. Shum and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.