Science for OUR Generation!

“Planning ahead is a measure of class. The rich and even the middle class plan for the “Next Generation”…..but the poor can plan ahead for only a few weeks or days”.

The projects I need funding for, as listed in the projected budget detail, were discovered as a result of work I did this summer on Next Generation Science for my personal use in my fourth and fifth grade classrooms. In trying to “plan ahead”, I discovered that these projects require a great deal of materials, most of which I do not have. In years past, I have bought and depended upon my students to bring in materials. Frequently, lack of funds prevents teachers from doing hands-on work simply for absence of materials or funding to purchase them. As a “hands on” science teacher, I KNOW that lack of money for materials is a real deterrent for most teachers. The money I have requested will serve to ensure forty students in grades 4 and 5 are actively engaged in Next Generation Science! Among the activities, students will utilize engineering and technology to build toy cars, build and test different materials, design flying machines, take a motorized car apart and learn engineering in reverse, gardening to observe tropism, building and testing structures against natural events, creating solar ovens and observing the sun’s power first hand.