2018-19 classroom projects
Here is a summary of the projects that are being funded for the 2018-2019 school year. Project summaries and outcomes will be available after June 2019. Click here for a downloadable list of the funded grants.
Growing Our Emotional Intelligence: Peace Corners
Hidie Reed, Bowman Elementary
Amount funded: $795.00
Hayward Education Association Kathy Crummey Award
One of our site focus areas for 2018-19 is to continue to build our positive climate at Bowman. Over the past five years, we have established our district-supported PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) program and implemented mindfulness programs to support students to increase their focus and emotional regulation. We want to continue to provide supports for students to be able to emotionally self-regulate because we notice that students can lose precious academic learning time if they are sent out of class due to disruption to the learning process. We are very inspired by one of our lab site teachers who did a Cycle of Inquiry last year, teaching her students mindfulness and creating a “Peace Corner” in her kindergarten classroom. All students had access to the Peace Corner to be able to self-regulate their emotions. We observed students who might normally be sent to the office because they were unable to function in class, indeed were able to choose to go to the Peace Corner for 5 minutes and engage in activities that helped them regulate their own emotions. As a result, these students did not miss out on instructional time and minimized disruption to their peers. We saw students who were actually paying attention to instruction while calming down and rejoined after taking care of their own emotional needs. They also showed excitement to re-engage with the learning activity. We noticed how even our youngest learners are able to self-regulate with practice and support. To build upon our sustained efforts to grow our positive climate at Bowman, for the 2018-19 school year, we want to bring Peace Corners to every classroom!
Perceptual Motor Skills Stations - TK Foundations
Elana Louie, Longwood Elementary
Amount funded: $610.00
Fremont Bank Supports Education Award
I would like to create a weekly structured perceptual motor skills programs to help my students develop their gross motor skills including perception, balance, strength and hand eye coordination. Each lesson will be held once a week for a 45-60 minute block. The students will practice a specific skill in three guided stations for about 15 minutes and then rotate. Students will have ample opportunities to develop, practice and improve skills. The equipment used in the lesson each week will also be set up outside (when possible) at recess time so students can continue to practice in a less structured environment. The goal of my project is to help students develop stronger motor skills, strength, balance, coordination and confidence. There are many education benefits to my students. There is strong link between physical activity and brain activity. Increasing the student’s strength will help them with academic subjects. In addition, all school subjects require motor skills. Children with strong perceptual motor skills have a strong foundation for learning. Furthermore, with these skills comes confidence and confident children can believe and achieve anything they dream of.
King Cobras Care for Our Community
Elanda Turner, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School
Amount funded: $791.00
Fremont Bank Supports Education Award
King Middle School seeks to find and create opportunities for our students to contribute to our school and the greater community. The "King Cobras Care for Our Community" Project will give our students the ability to have a direct impact on our school environment, and bring ecological awareness to the student body. Plus, our students will also be able to contribute to the larger Hayward Community by volunteering at the Shoreline. In addition to keeping our school free from litter, our students expressed an interest in making sure that items picked up are sorted into an appropriate destination of either recycle or landfill (they were also interested in composting but our school presently doesn't support composting due to sanitation). In order to get the student body more educated about the waste stream cycle, the students proposed putting up laminated signage around the school on bulletin boards, and in common areas. Through this project, our students will learn about the waste cycle: curbside pickup; sorting facility for reuse/re-purposing, recycling, energy production, composting, landfill; manufacturing using recycled materials; and, the purchase of items made from recycled materials. Our students will then be able to share this knowledge with their peers through presentations, demonstrations, signage, etc. Volunteering at the Shoreline will allow our student to learn how litter has a negative impact on our watershed, and to see how their direct abatement efforts help our local waterways and habitats. Additionally, students will learn about indigenous wildlife and plant species, and about the encroachment of invasive species.
Reduce. Reuse. Grow.
Sara Nawim, Bret Harte Middle School
Amount funded: $800.00
Hayward Rotary Award
Reduce. Reuse. Grow is an idea that my 8th grade science students came up with last year. Most of the time we just throw away products and never think about them again, assuming that someone, somewhere will take care of them for us. However the reality is different. My students will work on this project to really remind us that we are responsible for our waste. We can even transform it into something positive, beautiful and useful! Students will build a greenhouse with walls built of empty plastic bottles collected from school and home to create an insulation and yet allow light to pass through for the green house. We will use the greenhouse to grow various plants under controlled conditions. This enables students to also learn about different factors effecting the soil's pH and salinity and inhibit growth. Rain water will be stored for use during dry climate. The goal of this project is to teach our students to be aware of environmental consequences of actions by teaching them to reduce, reuse and transform trash into something positive, beautiful and useful!
Learning Chemistry Through Inquiry
Susan Cooper, Hayward High School
Amount funded: $600.00
Hayward Rotary Award
I would like to allow my students to experience more inquiry lab activities. They will design and build a hand warmer, compare the acidity of beverages, and separate mixtures. Instead of following a predetermined procedure and “concluding” an established relationship or constant, students will develop their own procedures in order to accomplish a goal. Replacing traditional labs with inquiry labs will increase students’ depth of knowledge and allow them to take more ownership of their learning. For the hand warmer lab, students will use their knowledge of calorimetry and heat transfer to make a hand warmer that results in the greatest temperature change. They will have various metals and salts to choose from. To compare the acidity of beverages, students will need to choose an appropriate indicator for an acid base titration in which they will neutralize beverage samples with sodium hydroxide. To separate a mixture of sand, salt, and metal, students will write a procedure with their knowledge of physical properties in mind. “Cookbook” labs with an expected outcome do not reflect scientific investigations in the real world. Students need the opportunity to generate their own questions, design experiments, and analyze data. Traditional labs only allow students to do the former. By introducing more guided inquiry labs, students will have the opportunity to design their own procedures. My students will be more prepared for real life situations.
Audiobook Supplies for Resource Students
Angelina Scarson, East Avenue Elementary School
Amount funded: $770.00
Special Education students need more resources and materials in order to access the grade level curriculum taught each year. The more students are mainstreamed into my classroom, the more I realize I do not have the correct materials to support their needs. I want to change this by helping my students with Individual Education Plans (IEP) to be able to keep up with their grade level peers academically by providing a way for them to read the class novels with audio book support. My project is to purchase audio books and portable CD players for my students who need reading support. These students will be able to read along either in class or at home. The goal of my project it to have audio support and reading resources for the students in my classroom who are Special Education students with IEPs and are struggling readers. The educational benefit of having audio books to support struggling readers is that these students can keep up with their peers in class. This will give them more confidence to participate in group projects or class discussions with their grade level peers. Often, my mainstreamed Special Education students or my Resource students feel that they are not a part of the group because they cannot take part in the whole group discussion. They will shy away from working with their general education peers because they feel they do not have anything to contribute to the group. I hope that having access to the reading material through Playaway reader or CD sets will help them feel like they are a part of the group and a true member of my classroom.
"Just-Right" Spanish Leveled Books
Laura Romero, Longwood Elementary School
Amount funded: $350.00
I want to give my students an opportunity to have plenty of books at their independent reading level in the language they need. Our class library has many English books at all reading levels. We are lacking Spanish leveled books for our 2nd grade bilingual classroom. I have students in my classroom at different reading levels, ranging from level A-N. Some of the levels in my library consists of about 10 books per level, where as some of my higher levels have close to 30 books. Good Spanish books are expensive and hard to find at a “Just Right” level. During independent reading time, my students are supposed to read books at their reading level to help them become more confident readers. Many of my second graders are feeling left out, feeling frustrated and discouraged because many of the books in our classroom library are too difficult for them. Some fall behind because of lack of practice due to low number of books at their particular reading level. My goal is to have books for ALL of my students so they can become better readers and most importantly enjoy reading to become lifelong readers. Using these books will also help my students value our bilingual education. With your help I will be able to purchase over 100 authentic Spanish fiction and non-fiction high interest books for the reading levels that I am most lacking books. These books will serve students this school year and for years to come.
Cooking & Math
Sanjli Burman, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School
Amount funded: $723.00
Students in the 21st Century require:
• Access to, and practice with cooking and self-help skills which will make them independent.
• Improve eating behaviors by providing knowledge and skills for lifelong healthy eating habits
• Support engaged learning across disciplines by integrating cooking skills with core academic content
• Support academic success by providing a stimulating learning environment for all types of learners
• Learn job skills by learning to handle cooking equipment and tools. Clean surfaces, use evidence base customer service practices.
My classroom does not currently offer these opportunities to my students. We do not have classroom cooking range, pots, pans, rice cooker, mixer or an oven. We are requesting funding for cooking range, Kitchen Utensils, pots and pans Access to these resources will allow us to address the following Common Core Standards (and others) for middle school while preparing my students for state testing and become independent contributors to society. My goal is to allow students to connect with actual world and become lifelong learners. They will be able to use reading and writing skills to read recipes, create their own recipes, shopping lists, calculate and measure ingredients. Science skills to understand plant life, ecosystems and human body as we use our limited resources more effectively to address these standards. We will be able to use these materials to do hands on practical learning of materials, and concepts like identifying, matching, collaborating etc. Additionally, these materials will provide opportunities to learn job skills and learn about economics. For many of the students in my class (especially those who have autism and who are physically handicapped ), practical hands on learning is very crucial. And these activities will help bridge between current and future understanding of topics.
Blast off for Flight and Rocketry!
Paul Garrison, Ruus Elementary School
Amount Funded: $511.00
Science in the Park Award
Our classroom project will be to go through a month long investigation of flight and rocketry. As sixth graders, part of their standards is engineering design, and a great way to implement this is to determine whether or not your vehicle or rocket can fly. By going through the process of trial and error of testing flight and determining the numerous variables that affect it, the students become young engineers and go through scientific process in a meaningful and fun way. The students will do about 12 activities. Some of these activities include:
• guiding flight and true flight
• lighter-than-air flight and heavier-than-air flight
• different flying machines such as parachutes, airships, jets, and spacecrafts
• Bernoulli’s principle of lift
• the Wright brothers, and the history of flight
The students will do these activities in order to progressively learn about the numerous factors and applications of how we’ve tested the limits of going through the air and atmosphere, with each activity taking the students a bit further off the ground. By the end of the unit, students will have a better understanding of the achievements of humans to fly and the amount of design and engineering necessary to make it happen.
Exploring Science with Vernier Sensors
Cheryl Perry, Winton Middle School
Amount Funded: $800.00
Fremont Bank Supports Education Award
I would like to offer two distinct projects that will provide a hands on learning opportunity for my students to explore the world around them in real time. The requested funds for the proposed resources for these two projects will provide sustainable lessons for all of my classes and students for years to come. These projects will encourage students to investigate natural phenomena and solve real-world problems that will help to prepare them for the newly adopted CA Science Test (CAST).
Project 1: Renewable Energy
Today, engineers are trying to design turbine blades that extract as much energy from the wind as possible. They experiment with many different designs to find what works best. This project will enable my students to do what engineers do by exploring blade design in the classroom. My students will apply the Science and Engineering Practices of the Next Generation Science Standards as they explore new science concepts through hands-on experimentation. In addition to exploring the optimum output for wind energy, with the Go Direct Energy Sensor, my students will also be able to collect and interpret data from their We Share Solar Suitcase projects. Students will measure the load that the lights draw on the system. The KidWind Experiment Kit is equipped with a water pump that can also be measured with the Go Direct Energy Sensor.
Project 2: Chemistry and Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Students will learn about the properties of molecules through fluorescence spectroscopy. Using 21st century Technology, the 21st Century Learner will engage in hands on discovery labs using a guided inquiry approach. Students will identify unknown substances using the Go Direct SpectroVis Plus Spectrophotometer. The Spectrophotometer measures a full wavelength spectrum. Students will learn to read spectroscope graphs for various unknowns as well as identify how much dye is in their favorite sports drink thereby yielding a healthy benefit to their studies. Spectroscopy is the study of the transmission or absorbance of light through a substance. Transmittance is a measure of the amount of light passing through a substance; absorbance is the amount of light that was captured by a substance. NGSS standards are addressed in this inquiry approach to understanding various wavelengths and molecular properties.
Life Science Microscope Expierments
Deirdre Wishom, KEY Academy Charter School
Amount Funded: $300.00
Fremont Bank Supports Education Award
The mandated science curriculum for 7th grade involves the study of Life Science. In particular, biology. Microscopes play an important role in many areas of science research. I am requesting 12 microscope sets. By using microscopes, students are able to see the smaller parts of plants, study the structure of cells, and discover the existence of micro-organisms. The most popular types of microscopes used in schools around the world generally come with magnification of 40x, 100x, 400x. according to Microscope World. Students will learn to use a compound light microscope. They will learn how to set up an experiment, proper slide preparation, proper microscope handling, respecting the light source, handling glass slides and specimens, and proper cleaning and storage of microscopes. Microscopy is an ideal activity to engage adolescents in scientific observation and discovery. By using microscopes, students discover a new world that they have never seen before. The learn to hone their observational skills and learn that being a good observer is a key skill for being a good scientist. I am positive that having microscopes in the classroom on a permanent basis will stimulate some spontaneous science observations. The natural curiosity of students will enable them to want to take a closer look at various objects both in nature, as well as man-made.
Fostering STEAM Creativity
Alexandra Slatoff, Bret Harte Middle School
Amount Funded: $472.00
Hayward Rotary Award
My project is about how important it is to foster creative thinking and creativity in the minds of Special Education Students. My students really enjoy and seem to find a passion for art. Many of my students have communication issues and are desperately searching for outlets. My students love learning about famous artists and learning the basics of art techniques. Using art as a part of a lesson will lead to deeper student engagement as well as giving them another way to "process" key ideas and terms. I plan to use these supplies to create art themed lessons. The lesson will focus on learning content in a different way like drawing a food web or ecosystem. I also want to work with students to ensure that students are making growth in social-emotional development. Using these as social-emotional learning tools students will gain an opportunity to express difficult emotions. Using a creative outlet to express these emotions will foster the ability to look at there feelings in a deeper context. Seeing as how we do not have an art class as a choice for students to take this would be a great alternative. Having art supplies like paint and drawing books will hopefully foster the creative bug in my students. Also having the STEAM connection with some of the toys and clay could be used for math and engineering projects as well. I hope to be creating a STEAM connection in all of my lesson throughout the day. I do feel that the art component of the STEAM is often forgotten. I hope to do art at least two times a week rotating in different subjects. From using the modeling clay during science lessons to create models for an ecosystem lesson to using the paint and cardstock to make the art of the Renaissance come alive. I think this will help foster creating thinking in my classroom hopefully leading to deeper more meaningful learning. Creating deeper ideas and making all learning styles available to my classroom.
Visual Student Dictionary Project
Margot Simpson, Fairview Elementary School
Amount Funded: $516.00
All students in my class are either Deaf or Hard of Hearing and use either Cochlear Implants or Hearing Aids. Many struggle with the conversion from visual language (American Sign Language) to print language and Sign Language dictionaries are either too limited or geared towards an adult audience and difficult for children to use. In this project, students will use the digital cameras, memory cards and the printer to create their own visual dictionaries by taking pictures of each other signing the words they encounter in reading, as well as in science and social studies. Students will create a dictionary that includes the word, its definition, and a photo of the student signing the word to create the dictionary entry. The goal is to allow students to create their own vocabulary banks that allow them to readily access curriculum and expand their reading and ASL vocabularies.
3D Printer
Desirae Christoffersen, Palma Ceia Elementary School
Amount Funded: $712.00
I would like to get a 3D printer to use in my classroom. Students will learn to code using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software from a web-based program. Students will be learning computer coding and how it applies to real life products. We are combining science, math, and art to create real-life three-dimensional objects. Students will design an object, code it in CAD software, and print it using the 3D printer. My goal of this project is to make a connection between art, design, science, technology, engineering, and math. Students will learn the practical application of coding. Students will be able to use their coding skills to engineer and manufacture a product on the three-dimensional printer.
Bilingual Library
Alejandra Arevalo, Longwood Elementary School
Amount Funded: $350.00
We are a bilingual class and need leveled Spanish books so our students can continue to grow at their reading level. My project idea is to purchase Spanish books within our reading leveled goals. I have a second and third bilingual class. It is my first time teaching 3rd grade and am in need of books at their level to grow in comprehension, especially inference where they tend to get stuck within a level. We will use books in a leveled library where students will book shop at their level, read the books for independent reading time (reading workshop time), and partner reading time and to be used in small group instruction time for mini lessons to provide student what they need to grow in reading. Educational benefit is having at level or above readers that can independently read and understand without support. It will expand their limited Spanish vocabulary and help them express their thoughts using at level text as a model. This will be achieved by reading proper reading leveled Spanish books during independent reading time, partner reading time where they discuss their reading, small group reading time and whole group book discussion time.
Empowering Vulnerable Students with Tech
Matthew Estill, Brenkwitz High School
Amount Funded: $672.00
Our project is designed to strengthen the sense of community between the emotionally disturbed students in our Counseling Enriched Special Day Class and our school, previous/future graduates, and the Hayward community. Most of my students have been traumatized in their homes and/or the community and have anxiety around engaging with peers, school staff and community members outside of their immediate caregivers. Most experience anxiety around going into public, using public transportation, getting a driver's license, going to college, and getting employed. We plan to use VR simulations and a series of photo exhibits to facilitate positive interactions between students and their environment couched in the safety of school and therapeutic support. We hope to use the Oculus Go for VR simulations such as driving, working in public, using public transportation, and engaging with the community in general from the safe supported place. In addition, we plan to use our cameras and our drone to take photos of special projects on campus, events in the community, and captivating scenes in preparation for exhibits for the school and community, as well as to create and present a school-wide slideshow. Our goals are centered around helping our students overcome their anxiety around engaging with and interacting with people. Through the use of the Oculus Go, we hope to increase their willingness to engage with peers, school staff, and the community via a series of simulation activities from the safety of our counseling enriched classroom. The VR experiences will target areas of need individualized to each student through IEP goals, such as getting a driver's license, job interviewing, and enjoying public experiences. Through the use of the cameras, we plan to use expressed interest in photography to facilitate positive interactions with the school community and the local community through our photo exhibitions and a school-wide slideshow we plan to host during our lunch. Again, creating structured, school supported experiences through which our students have positive interactions with people they don't know well. Our goal with our new drone, is to expand our drone flying program to the outdoor world. We plan to use our drone for unique photography inside and outside as well as to deepen their understanding of FAA rules as they apply to outdoor flying and drone-related career pathways.
