Teachers put Excellence Foundation grants to work

Photo

Neighbors | Submitted.8th graders Jaret Foulke, Julia Malich and Emily Esterly are pictured here planting Space tomatoes with teacher Scott Lenhart.

Photo

Neighbors | Submitted.From left, Kiley Andersen, Logan Miller, teacher Tamie Socie, Clayton Hoffman and Milo Wright are pictured in the classroom.

Photo

Neighbors | Submitted.Student Dimitra Coutris is pictured here listening to a story on new a iPod Touch.

Photo

Neighbors | Submitted.Glenwood Middle teachers Scott Lenhart and Laura Kibby were recipiants of grants from the Boardman Schools Fund for Educational Excellence.

Photo

Neighbors | Submitted.Students Addison Volosin, Sam Hugenberg and Christopher Solvesky learn on the new technology provided by the grants from the Boardman Excellence Foundation..

Photo

Neighbors | Submitted.Stadium Elementary second-grade teacher Jessica Meli listened to Dimitra Coutris explain her story using the new technology.

In the final two weeks of the school year, Boardman teachers who won grants from the Boardman Schools Fund for Educational Excellence want to show how those grants were put to work in the classroom. Six teacher mini-grants were awarded in the fall, each project capped at $1,500.

Perhaps the most visible project was Glenwood Middle School’s Blooming Biomes for Sprouting Skills. Teachers Scott Lenhart and Laura Kibby used their $1,500 dollar grant to create a hydroponic gardening system for eighth-grade students. In the past two months they have grown peppers, green beans and lettuce from seeds and engineered a “TomatoSphere” project using some seeds that had literally been in outer space. Students will investigate the effects of the space environment on the growth of the seeds and neither the students nor the teachers will know which seeds have been in space, until they submit their results.

Stadium Drive kindergarten teacher Tamie Socie explained that the new iPad Minis and docking station she purchased through the BSFEE grant, have been a powerful educational tool in her class. Students rotate through small groups using apps such as Teach Me Kindergarten, RAZ Kids and Sight Word apps to improve reading skills.

Stadium Drive second-grade teacher Jessica Meli purchased six iPod Touch 16GB MP3 players for her students to listen to stories in the Daily Five. The Daily Five is a research based program that enhances student’s fluency and comprehension skills. When students finish listening to their stories, they take a comprehension test on the Accelerated Reader App on the iPod.