My students need microscopes! One of the most engaging tools of science, microscopes make visible a whole world that many students have never directly experienced.
$709 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
Science is the most engaging subject for middle-school students because it is hands-on and directly experiential. In our classroom, we begin with concrete experiments and then work together to figure out what the results mean. Organized chaos and spirited discussion are the energizing norm.
My students are young adolescents, usually between the ages of 11 and 14.
Though the outside world often stamps them with many of the more demoralizing labels (minority, inner-city, low social-economic status, immigrant, under-privileged), I am constantly inspired by their passion for learning, and their willingness to help each other along the way. The vast majority accept that they are being held to high standards, and they trust that both the teacher and their peers are there to give support in reaching those standards.
Many of my students have never had some of the "common" experiences that curricula often assume students can draw on for background knowledge... experiences like looking through a microscope. A whole chunk of their 7th grade curriculum is focused on microscopic organisms, and yet they have no personal experience with the world we can only see with a microscope. They must rely on images and television.
My Project
This year,students will learn about microscopes by actually using them, rather than by just reading about them. They will start by examining things they can see with the naked eye (like hair, onion skins, elodea leaves, etc.) and discovering how much more there is to see than they previously imagined. They are introduced to cells, and start to wrap their heads around the scale of the invisible world. Then they will investigate simple, single-celled organisms (like paramecia), and learn how even the simplest of living things has the same basic needs and functions that we do. They begin to realize how much more diverse the world is than they knew. Experiences like this can pique their interest in science careers, or perhaps help to underscore the importance of our environment and its diversity of life.
Looking forward: Most high-school curricula assume that students have a basic understanding of microscopes, how to use them, and what can be learned with them.
Access to these powerful tools provides students with a concrete experience on which to hang their knowledge of the world of the very small.
Many students will be more engaged in their learning, never to be underestimated! They will also arrive at high school biology with the knowledge that they need to proceed.
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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. Ruttan and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
