My students need WIKKI STIX, paper bags, paper plates, marbles and index cards for a take-home, engineering family project.
FULLY FUNDED! Dr. Grizzle's classroom raised $930
This project is fully funded
My Students
Students at my school love to learn, and can acquire so much more knowledge if only we had the resources. Some of these students are described as limited English students, delinquent, migratory students, or students with disabilities. The total enrollment is approximately 667 students. The ethnic composition is comprised of approximately 62% Black, 11% White, 20% Hispanic, .2% American Indian, 3% Asian, and 3% two or more races. In this school, 64.5% of the students are eligible for the free or reduced meals program.
One of the ways I want to inspire a love of learning for my students is through STEM-based instruction with parental involvement.
We live in an increasingly complex world and it is important that we equip our youth with the knowledge and skills to be proficient problem solvers who can gather and evaluate evidence and make sense of information, which can be learned by studying STEM disciplines.
My Project
Parents play a multitude of roles in their child’s life. Besides being a caregiver and guardian, parents are advisors, coaches, and a child’s first teacher. Parents teach their children proper decorum, tenacity despite failures, and encourage their curiosity by patiently answering their “why?” Parents want the best for their children, including a successful career that leads to productive citizens and driven problem solvers. The chances of becoming a professional in sports and singing or acting on the big screen are slim. However, what is guaranteed are in-demand, high-paying college degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
The purpose of the STEM on the GO family engagement project is to ignite a lifelong passion of curiosity and inquiry that will engage students and encourage the pursuit of a STEM-related career.
The take-home STEM challenge will encourage families to form a positive attitude toward STEM disciplines as they work together and use the engineering design process to come up with a solution. In this particular take-home STEM challenge, the family's task is to create a prototype of a new interactive maze ride requested by an amusement park. If my project is funded, families will be provided with Wikki Stix, a paper plate, index cards, pipe cleaners, and a marble in order to work together and create a working interactive maze with ramps, tunnels, an entrance, and exit.
The engineering design process will allow families to ask each other questions about the challenge, imagine possible solutions, plan a design with a sketch, create and build the solution based on the plan, test it, and finally, modify the design and test it again. Since the engineering design process is an iterative process, families will be engaged over a period of time until a solution is reached.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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 Dr. Grizzle and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.