Help me give my students two Spike Prime Robot Expansion Set so they can learn computer programming and prepare for 21st-century jobs.
$339 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.
My robotics students are bright, inquisitive, and love a challenge. Most of them have never built a robot or programmed a single line of computer code. Many of my students come from disadvantaged backgrounds. During the day I teach gifted students, but after school, I coach robotics to mixed-ability teams, including students with learning and social difficulties through the whole range of abilities to gifted students.
Learning to become literate in at least one computer programming language is a 21st century skill that my students need to prepare for the job market they will enter as adults.
The leadership and social skills they learn while participating in our robotics program are even more valuable.
In our rural district, most of the families work in agriculture. Over 80% of our school children are of Hispanic descent, and many of them are English Language Learners. Our robotics team reflects this diversity as well.
My Project
Despite our school district's small size and limited resources, we love robotics. Every year our program grows because we open it to all students, regardless of academic ability. This year we sponsored 7 robotics teams with kids in grades 4-8th grade to compete in FIRST Lego League Robotics competitions. This year three of our teams won awards at the regional competition and two of our teams are competing in the Washington State competition next month. Each of our 7 teams needs a robot and our current robots are aging and need to be replaced. Kids join robotics because they think robots sound fun, but they get so much more!
Our novice students quickly become experts in computer coding but more importantly learn the cooperation, critical thinking, leadership, and presentation skills applicable to all their future learning.
We can't give all the credit to the robots. The FIRST Robotics program is an amazing force for building positive life skills in our students, but we can't run the program without the robots. Each team needs a basic SPIKE Prime robot plus the expansion set to have all the components needed for competition. Our students spend the fall months preparing intensively for the First Lego League robotics competition, but the robots will be used all year long during our off-season open robotics lab.
Coaching robotics is one of the best parts of my job because I get to see my inexperienced students transform into confident leaders interested in pursuing computer coding and engineering as careers. Many of their parents work in agricultural jobs and participating in robotics opens their eyes to many technical careers they had not previously considered. Thank you for being a part of their success.
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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 Mrs. Carlson and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
