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
Our school is a rural school in southeast Louisiana. All students at our school receive free breakfast and lunch. Our community is not a wealthy community, but they are rich in community spirit. In the beginning of the school year, a local church invited our entire faculty in for a lunch and prayer. At that lunch, the church pledged to support us as much as possible with prayers, manpower, and finances as available.
Our parents often work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
The children needed a safe place to be supervised after school hours while their parents work. This prayer lunch inspired us to collaborate with local businesses to help build up our free after-school program. Through local and federal grants and business sponsors, we now have a free after school program for students in grades in three to five. We have found our students are most interested in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) classes so we made our after school program a STEAM-focused program. In our program, we have a science lab, a coding class, a computer literacy class, a maker lab, music/dance class, and the "math and science of cooking".
My Project
I am fortunate to get to teach the math and science of cooking class. Our students are learning all kinds of math and science concepts on accident, just by cooking in class with me. At least, they think it is an accident. It is very thought out on my end. For instance, when we were smothering potatoes, I lifted the lid of the container and steam rose and hit the lid of the pad. The steam collected on the lid until it rained back in the pan. We used this opportunity to discuss the water cycle. This was an instant example of water cycle that the students could see and actually understand.
I have also taken recipes and purposely halved them just so that the students would have to do the math to double it for our class.
The students did not know that the recipe originated much larger, they just know that they have to figure out what 3/4 plus 3/4 is. These are real life examples of when they will use fractions in real life.
I teach 12 classes a week. To keep up with this demand, I need some more items. I am requesting some foil cooking pans. With these items, I will be able to cook even more items. We are hoping to make cabbage rolls in the future. We would need foil pans for that lesson. I recently had some foil pans delivered in a smaller size will work with some recipes. However, now I need larger pans to open our horizons.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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. Mixon and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
