The cost of materials for this research project activity is $240, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
$240 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.
I am the media specialist at a public elementary school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Over 85% of our students are low income. The vast majority of our students are very good children who want to be successful in school.
Filling out worksheets and memorizing information to take a test does not contribute to real learning. In order to become true thinkers, students need to be given problems to solve, evaluating information that they discover. Research projects are a wonderful way to for students to learn how to locate, evaluate, and synthesize information.
In our school, all of the fifth grade students must do a research project about Native Americans. Last year, one teacher and I tried an experiment. Instead of simply handing the students a sheet of paper stating what must be included in the project, we created research booklets for them to use. Each booklet consisted basically of one legal size manila folder with six envelopes taped to the inside of the folder. Each envelope was labeled with a different topic that was required to be included in the project-"homes", "food", "clothing", etc. An index card was placed inside each envelope. When the students did their projects, they knew to pull out their index cards and see how much information they had gathered on each topic. For example, if the envelope marked "food" held an empty index card, the students knew that they had not gathered that required information. At the end of the project the other teacher, the students, and I evaluated the usefulness of this research strategy. The results were overwhelmingly positive. The teacher said that the students turned in projects that did not leave out sections of required information, and the students said that this was the best way they had ever done research. They said they wished that all of their research projects had been done in this format last year. I believe that helping students learn how to organize their information by using the booklets we created will help them learn how to organize their research and become more proficient at gathering and presenting information that is required of them in school and in other areas of their lives.
The folders that we assemble will be laminated, so the students will be able to use them for more than one project since lamination can be written on with a wipe-off marker. The materials I am requesting will be enough to provide research booklets to all third, forth, and fifth grade students who will be doing research this year. The cost of the materials requested may seem small enough that the school should be able to cover the cost, but our school has very high needs students that could really use the help. The materials requested should create about 300 research booklets. Thank you.
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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. Shoaf and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
