High School South juniors Isabel Hager-Johnson, Ethan Fishbone, Annie Stuart, and Sarah Elmostehi recently spent a day in a behind-the-scenes look at Rider University’s performing arts program. The program was made possible in part by support from the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation, a member of the Central New Jersey Education Foundation Partnership, and Rider University.##M:[more]##
The WW-P Education Foundation’s Board of Trustees awarded more than $12,”000 for 20 new mini-grants to teachers and students in the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District for 2006-2007. The innovative educational programs funded include astronomy, audio books, astronomy; audio books, Millstone River ecology site, musical instruments, and digital DNA gel analysis.
“The WW-P Education Foundation works to enhance the excellent programming provided by our school district, and such partnerships bring a new and exciting perspective to students,” says Marcia Fleres, executive director of the WW-P Education Foundation. “We are pleased to have both Merrill Lynch and Bristol-Myers Squibb as partners in our mission to foster educational excellence in the WW-P schools.”
New grants include:
“Helping Students Who Stutter,” Bonnie Engel Lee, speech and language specialist, Dutch Neck Elementary School. The project uses DVDs and printed materials from the Stuttering Foundation to educate parents, teachers, speech and language specialists, and students. In-service training will be provided for speech and language specialists throughout the school district.
“All Aboard Reading,” Karen Krech, Barbara Sheridan, Gina Hopkins, and Kristine Luberto, teachers at Maurice Hawk Elementary School. This project will foster emergent reading skills in ESL (English as Second Language) students as they read to their families from books on topics from their science and social studies curricula. Parents will be shown early reading strategies to use with their children.
“Math Matters: Making Kids Feel At Home with Math,” Nancy McCaffrey, basic skills math teacher, Maurice Hawk Elementary School. Through the integration of math and reading, this project will use the Math Matters Series to improve student’s awareness and understanding of math in their everyday lives. The Math Matter Series uses individual stories to introduce new math concepts to second and third graders and enhance students interest and discussion skills.
“Astonishing Astronomy: Star Bound,” Lisa Stamile and Keith Van Doren, fourth grade teachers, Millstone River School. This project will reach all fourth graders in the school. It will enhance the new astronomy science kit with computer software, 3-D solar system models, binoculars and telescopes for night time Star Parties.
“Electricity Enhanced,” Michael Jones, Beth Eaves, Keith Van Doren, Luis Ramirez, fourth grade teachers, Millstone River School. This project will enhance the fourth grade electric circuits kit by supplying materials that will provide additional hands-on experiences, support a variety of learning styles, and extend the content of the kits, and enable teachers to expand student learning through enrichment materials.
“Professor Nemo’s Salt Water Aquarium,” Sven Strand and Lizbeth Reil, fifth grade teachers, Millstone River School. Fifth graders will apply basic chemistry concepts as they establish and maintain a 55 gallon salt water aquarium. These concepts connect the mixtures and solutions science kit to real world application. The aquarium will be set up in a common area of the school for all students to learn and enjoy.
“Speaking Out: Bringing Stories to Special Populations,” Heidi Wachtin, fourth grade teacher, Millstone River School. Through storytelling, fourth grade students will learn to interpret text, enhance their public speaking sills and gain an appreciation for technology and the arts as tools to reach out to others. They will bring their festival of stories to those who cannot come to them: senior citizens and hospitalized children.
“Music Materials for the Preschool Handicapped Children,” Diane Kosar, special education teacher, Millstone River School. Music instruments and materials will be purchased and used during daily music time in the special education preschool program.
“Science, Math and (Art)isan Bread Baking,” James Eng, teacher, Village School. Artisan bread baking involves math, science, and art in a classic, creative, hands-on, fun-filled way. This project will endeavor to teach the children the art of baking French bread while physically representing academic concepts they have learned.
“Career Exploration: Developmental Guidance Lessons,” Lynn Fisher, Colleen Pedersen, Faith Hancock, and Ellen Burgess, guidance counselors, Community Middle School. Seventh and eighth grade students will explore career choices in our rapidly changing world of work. They will match their personal interests and strengths to the universe of job possibilities by using the Career Game.
“Audio Books for Below Grade Level Readers,” Ginny McNeil, literacy lab teacher, Grover and Community middle schools. This project will benefit eighth grade struggling readers by providing audio books to read along with their class novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It will support student comprehension, improve vocabulary and motivate students to actively participate in discussions and reader response activities.
“Future City Competition,” David Meni, Siddharth Pant, Mahesh Reddy, Jared Meltzer, and Alex Gerber, eighth grade students, Grover Middle School. The goal is to design and build a city of the future virtually and physically in a model. The end result will be to go to a state competition. This is new pilot project and if it is a success, the students hope that future students will be able to have an opportunity to engage in an innovative and education club.
“Building an Educational Amphitheater,” Jason Kuo, student and Boy Scout; James Looney, teacher, High School North. The project will design, build, and maintain an amphitheater made of wooden benches at High School North.
“Improving the Millstone River Ecology Site,” Peter Maa, student and Boy Scout; James Looney, science teacher, High School North. The Millstone River ecology study site at High School North will be renovated and extended to 2,”900 feet in length. Woodchips will cover the trail and five benches will be installed at points of educational interest.
“Rider University’s PROBE Program,” Kristina Susca and Holly Sassinsky, science teachers, High Schools North and South. Environmental science students will be participating in Rider University’s PROBE Program, which is an aquatic ecological workshop at the Hamilton/Trenton marsh. Students will be contributing to authentic research in scientific study and will game more awareness of environmental issues in their surrounding community.
“Support Group for At-Risk Students of Color,” Linda Morrell, school counselor, High School North. This lunch group for at-risk students of color will include guest speakers, career counseling, and group sessions. Activities will focus on providing a support system for students with the goal of increasing student success in school.
“Echoes Poetry Workshops,” Barbara Jetton, teacher and Echoes faculty advisor, High School South. Students in Echoes will develop and conduct poetry workshops for students for grades 4-5 at Village School and Millstone River School. Workshops will introduce key concepts such as imagery and meter through reading classic poems and writing poetry that explores and employs these concepts.
“Digital DNA Gel Analysis,” Matthew Foret and Meenakshi Bhattacharya, AP biology teachers, High School South. This project will allow students in AP Biology and the Waksman Club to use computers to analyze DNA gels.
“Smart Board in the High School Science Classroom,” Katherine Heavers Princiotta and Christopher Trefz, teachers, High School South. Students will be able to view and manipulate a wide variety of images, from graphs of their data to virtual dissections. All notes from lectures will be available for access at any point in the future. Visual information of all kinds can be sent to all students so they can pursue study of class work at their own pace.
“Unity Day,” Stacey Gasper, Caryn Vlassenko, Carlos Lopez, Kelly Fisher, Adam Jacyszyn, and Eric Schnitter, High School South. The purpose of Unity Day is to recognize and embrace the similarities and differences of students from diverse social, cultural and academic backgrounds. Student volunteers will organize and run a field day for the diverse student population to eliminate stereotypes and misconceptions.
A private, nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the continued excellence of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional Schools, the foundation has awarded more than $164,”000 in teacher grants for more than 200 innovative programs in the schools since it was founded in 1995. For more information visit www.wwpef.org.
