My First Grant

I have always been very interested in the development of curriculum and absolutely love differentiating for my G/T students. Three out of my six classes are G/T, and now I am the only 8th grade science teacher that has that schedule. So, it gives me sort of a creative outlet, and it allows me to teach at the level where I think all eighth grade kids should be. It's so much fun.

Last week my friend and colleague Kim and I went to the conference for the Texas Association of Gifted and Talented. Basically we attended lots of workshops on differentiation and design of curriculum. It's great if you can go to a conference and bring home one or two useful ideas, but this time I just got so much out of it.

One of the most powerful things was that I learned, through an exhibit, about Project Learning Tree. It is a super-fabulous program that provides a cross-curricular basis for taking learning outside into nature. I had the best time talking to their representatives and felt such a strong urge to get involved. One of my favorite college experiences was a 'field' class where we actually got into a bus and went into the wild to study. I learned so much! If I could share even a fraction of that with my students, I know they would be greatly, and forever, impacted. Here is an example of one of the activities we might conduct; testing the quality of the water on Lake Texoma and then studying how it impacts the local marine ecosystem. Another example is studying the exposed rock layers at the lake and the nature preserves here to determine the geologic history of our area. I love this stuff! I get so excited just thinking about it.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I came home and wrote my very first grant. A generous foundation here in Sherman provides mini-grants up to 2500.00. Who knows if I'll actually get one, but I wrote a heck of a proposal. My intention is to build little conservationists out of these kids. If they can have an experience, even one, that changes their footprint, I would feel so very successful.

Here are the main components of my proposal, in case you're interested.
1. Teacher training - we have to have at least 10 teachers trained (in several disciplines) to really make this work. All lessons are multi-disciplinary and correlate directly to TEKS objectives (YAY, talking point)

2. Three field excursions (I would especially love to visit the Lake (we could hike to several interesting points), the Sneed Blackland Prarie restoration project (An Austin College initiative, very cool), and the Hagerman wildlife refuge)). All destinations are within 30 miles of our campus and all offer extreme potential. A key component in this project is visiting the same location on different occasions to see how changes in the environment, climate, etc., effect species survival.

3. Digital cameras to record observations

4. Journal writing for reflection. Students will get to keep their journals at the end of the year.

Anyway, the proposal is due by December 19th and I dropped it off in my principal's office today for approval before I send it off.

It is my very first grant, but I just feel so good about it. I love the idea, I think it would make such a difference, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed!