My students need a diversity of 8 preserved animal samples to represent the major vertebrate phyla such as stingrays, dogfish sharks, toads, and snakes.
I teach at a high need, inner city High School. I teach biology to all grades and at all levels. I have 9th grade honors students, 10th grade regular and remedial students, and 11th and 12th advanced students taking AP Biology.
Our school is an older inner city school, with little money to order supplies. In addition, our state is proposing substantial budget cuts to our education programs for next year. Every biology curriculum, regardless of the level at which it is taught includes a unit on the diversity of the animal kingdom. In my 11 years of experience teaching this course, it is hands down the "favorite" unit of study by the majority of the students! It is what they look forward to studying all year long. Whenever possible,
I try to bring in examples of preserved or live animals for the students to observe. This "show and tell" approach has students sitting on the edge of their seats with anticipation to see what specimen I will pull out next. The fascination with being able to not only see but actually touch each of the animal specimens provides such a unique learning experience to all of the students...which ultimately leads to questions, questions and more questions. This equates to learning, learning and more learning!! I would like to order a variety of preserved animal specimens to "show and tell" with my students to allow them to have some hands on learning opportunities on the diversity of vertebrate animals.
Your donation will most likely be the only opportunity available to provide my students with such an enriching educational opportunity. This project would impact ALL of my biology students at all levels. In addition, since the specimens are preserved, and can be reused over several years: your gift would continue to give to students year after year.
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