A large wooden structure with porous pots nestled into small holes rests against the windows in Mr. Pool’s ninth-grade science classroom. The hydroponic garden, which was built by McCaskey students, grows lettuce, radishes, tomatoes and strawberries.
The is just one example of “extra” learning activities this year in the School District of Lancaster made possible by venture grants from the Lancaster Education Foundation.
This year, LEF provided more than $21,000 in venture grants to teachers in grades K-12. The program is funded through a combination of individual gifts, business donations and qualifying Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) contributions.
The students tending the hydroponics garden are learning about the process of pollination, taking on the role of bees as they delicately transfer pollen from flower to flower using small paint brushes.
Other venture grants awarded during the 2018-2019 school year are:
- Asana Inquiry & Meditation: $1,000 to bring trained yoga and mindfulness teachers from a local nonprofit into Burrowes Elementary to help students develop self-control and regulation, conduct literacy-based reflections and focus on instructional demands.
- Breakout Boxes: $800 for activities that ask students at the McCaskey Campus to “open the box” by collaborating to solve challenging puzzles.
- Encouraging Reading Success for ELL: $2,200 for “high interest/low level” books for high school students learning to speak English. The books are designed for students not yet fluent in English, but who have teenage interests.
- Navigating Digital Screen Time: $1,000 for access to a digital audio book, The Art of Screen Time: How your family can balance digital media and real life, for all schools to share with parents.
- Schoolyard Habitat Design: $2,500 to allow students at E.R. Martin School to design, build and establish a native pollinator garden. (Additional funding provided by the National Wildlife Federation.)
- Sciencepalooza: $1,400 for a family science night at Wheatland Middle School featuring student science work along with interactive exhibits from the North Museum, live animal presentations, Millersville University robotics and more.
- The Lion King, Jr.: $2,500 to bring live theater back to Hand Middle School for the first time in more than 20 years. The student production of The Lion King, Jr. hit the stage in May and students then had the opportunity to see the Broadway production in New York on ??.
- Science Explores: $12,000 for elementary students districtwide to experiment in the Savvy Circuits program (third-graders) and the Matter Monsters program (fourth-graders).