My students need a digital projector and materials for studying life cycles of the ant, butterfly, and horned lizard indigenous to the western region that they live in.
We've adopted a lizard! Help us understand its role in the desert environment that we live in - we'll study ants, lizards, and even chickens in our hands-on unit.
My students are 2nd graders who come from low income neighborhoods outside Salt Lake City.
They come to Alianza to experience our unique blend of online curriculum and hands-on project learning. Each student has an individualized learning plan so that they can learn core subjects at their own pace and then take their knowledge and apply it to exciting hands-on projects. Our class has adopted a lizard. We have researched how to provide a proper habitat for the lizard, and I have already invested the necessary money to house him in a comfortable and humane environment. The lizard is local to the area we live in and depends upon insects for its diet; it can eat crickets, mealworms, fruit flies and especially thrives on ants we can order online. In rescuing the lizard our class is learning about both conservation and humane treatment of animals. Our second grade curriculum includes the study of both animal and plant life cycles and this experience will bring those studies to life!
My Project
My students have been studying the life cycles of plants and animals. I know that watching and caring for a live animal (horned lizard) and the insects (ants) that the lizard eats is an experience that other curriculum cannot describe. I have seen the great impact that living creatures can make on a classroom. Through watching children observe a delicate life form and learn how to care for it, I have seen students’ understanding and interest in science soar. At Alianza, we strive to make connections for kids - to connect them to their studies, to connect them to their subject matter, and to make connections as a class together. A digital projector will make our studies complete as we can then share materials with the whole class, making individual projects available for classroom discussion.
Something changes when you see a living creature in class - a door opens to knowledge of a new kind, the kind that can only be learned through experience.
Having living, breathing, animals in our classroom and the materials to help explain the life cycle they each go through will supplement our science studies in a concrete way and will set the tone for a lifetime of inquisitive learning.
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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. Clark and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.