Our students come from a variety of different economic backgrounds with 100% of our student population receiving free/reduced lunch. Our school is located in the middle of farm fields and our students come from the small neighboring towns and communities. Because of our location, we are a small rural school with limited financial means.
Our students often lack opportunities larger schools take for granted simply because of logistics.
Our students deserve the same learning opportunities as those in larger districts, learning opportunities that will propel them out into life beyond their public education.
Our students have proven over and over again, that if given the opportunity they can be successful through hard work and determination.
My Project
This is my 20th year teaching Pre-K through 12th grade art. Currently, I teach in a small rural school located in the middle of farm fields. Six years ago, I created a 7th-12th grade after-school robotics program via FIRST, specifically the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). We have two robotics teams that compete with other FTC teams. I added an after-school coding program a couple years later because regardless of how well my students designed and built their robot, we needed knowledgeable programmers to make the robot move. Our After School Coding students compete in a league with students from much larger schools. My students are excelling in all these programs which weren't previously covered in our school's curriculum.
I would like to combine our art and programming skills by incorporating more STEAM activities to my art classroom as well as robotics.
A cutting-edge 3D printer would allow my students to create 3D replicas of their 2D artworks. Our robotics students would be able to create much-needed parts for their robots as well.
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