Chase donates $35K to YSU

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The JPMorgan Chase Foundation has donated $35,000 to Youngstown State University to continue a program to improve science instruction for more than 500 fifth- and sixth-graders in the Youngstown City Schools.

With the gift, JPMorgan Chase and its predecessors have donated nearly $275,000 to YSU in the past 11 years.

Previous gifts have been earmarked for the Andrews Recreation and Wellness Center, scholarships, Students Motivated by the Arts and the Youngstown Early College.

“I want to thank the leadership of JPMorgan Chase for this generous donation,” YSU President Cynthia E. Anderson said. “This gift will help the children in our inner-city schools and is a reflection of JPMorgan Chase’s continued commitment to our community.”

This is the third year that JPMorgan Chase has supported the YSU Interdisciplinary Three Sciences Fifth and Sixth Grades Program. In that time, students enrolled in the program have improved on the Ohio Achievement Test, and teachers involved in the program have given it glowing marks for its impact on students.

“Through philanthropy, JPMorgan Chase wants to ensure that Youngstown children acquire the knowledge and skills needed to become productive, engaged citizens,” said Theodore F. Walter, president of the Youngstown market for Chase. “The program helps children deepen their appreciation for science – a discipline that plays a key role in keeping our nation competitive.”

The program, a partnership between the Youngstown City Schools and the YSU Center for Urban and Regional Studies, is an interdisciplinary approach to science instruction for fifth- and sixth-grade students.

Students learn to understand science and its applications in real life by engaging in numerous interdisciplinary activities, including trips to Mill Creek Park for lessons in life science. “In this type of dynamic learning, students remember more easily because they are challenged by a problem they have to figure out and they also typically are using their senses – hearing, touching, seeing and smelling,” said Holly Burnett-Hanley, research associate with the Center for Urban and Regional Studies.

Under the program, 450 fifth-graders and 75 teachers from various disciplines engage in an interdisciplinary approach to life science, physical science and earth and space science.

The approach includes hands-on activities, field trips and three-dimensional models based on the Ohio Academic Content Standards. The program also includes 75 sixth-graders and 10 teachers in various disciplines who pioneer an interdisciplinary approach to the three sciences and create a model for the other sixth-grade classes in the next school year based on the Ohio Academic Content Standards.