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Mrs. Hollands from Gwinn MI is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

What Makes Us Human? A Literature-Based STEM Unit

Help me give my students a STEM focus in our Honors English class with books and DVDs that probe ethical issues in science and technology.

  • $447 goal

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Hooray! This project is fully funded

My Students

Welcome to our English Language Arts classroom in Gwinn, Michigan. Our high school is tucked in the pines in the beautiful and remote Upper Peninsula.

My students are quirky, fun, and high energy.

I teach 10th through 12th graders whose interests range from playing sports to participating in drama camp to showing farm animals at the county fair. I love to nurture a passion for reading and writing and to help students develop their voices. These teenagers have a lot to say to the world!

Also, I have a science background, and I try to incorporate STEM lessons in my ELA classes when possible.

My Project

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the publishing of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The novel, about a doctor who creates a monster, remains relevant today as we face ethical dilemmas in genetic engineering, stem cell research, animal to human transplants, etc. I would like to create a unit for my Honors English students -- the class is mostly girls -- where they will research and debate topics regarding ethics, science, and technology.

In addition to Frankenstein, we will read Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Henrietta was a poor, black tobacco farmer and mother, and her cells -- now known as HeLa cells -- were taken without her knowledge in 1951. These cells were sent to researchers around the world and have been used for curing polio, gene mapping, cloning, and more.

A documentary that I would like to tie in with this unit is Three Identical Strangers. It examines triplets who were separated at birth, a secret study, and controversies over ethics.

These resources, along with a variety of online research materials, will help my students explore what it means to be human.

Mrs. Hollands
Grades 9-12

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Where Your Donation Goes

Materials Cost Quantity Total
Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds (The MIT Press) • Amazon Business $17.95 10 $179.50
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks • Amazon Business $12.80 10 $128.00
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks (Digital HD) • Amazon Business $14.99 1 $14.99
Three Identical Strangers • Amazon Business $14.96 1 $14.96
Frankenstein - The Mini-Series • Amazon Business $6.53 1 $6.53

Materials cost

$343.98

Vendor shipping charges

FREE

Sales tax

$0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$5.16

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$379.14

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$66.91

Total project goal

$446.05

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

$446.05

6 Donors

-$408.53

Donations toward project cost

-$349.39

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$59.14

match offer

-$35.00

Match offer toward project cost

-$29.75

Match offer to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$5.25

Excluded support for DonorsChoose

-$2.52

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

$0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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Project Activity

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