Grants: 2007-2008

Memorial School

Low Elements Course – A fantastic climbing ropes course that is used in conjunction with PE and Project Adventure at Memorial School.

American Sign Language - An instructor provides an overview of American Sign Language and deaf culture to the Kindergarten program.  Classes include games that teach signs of animals, colors and feelings. Sign language will be taught to accompany songs that the children are learning in class.  Research has shown that sign language helps strengthen skills in reading, math and other academic pursuits.

Listening Centers – With this equipment, students are able to comprehend up to two years above their own reading ability by listening to digital books.  Students who are not strong readers learn to love good literature because they are not struggling to read the text themselves. They can actually sit back and enjoy the story.  This helps weak readers learn to love reading and motivates them to read more on their own.

Digital camera and player used for social skills development – the use of this equipment has been found to be a positive and motivating tool to work on the difficult aspects of communication and social skills development at the elementary grade level

Traverse Wall Upgrade – this grant funded some additional improvements and elements to the existing climbing wall in the gym

Class of 2015 5th Grade Play/Merrowvista Trip - this grant supported the annual 5th grade play, “Pirates of Penzance”.  This play is an outstanding initiative that promotes teamwork and creativity for each class, and helps the class raise funds for their annual trip to Camp Merrowvista.

Essex Elementary

Math Literature - Literature that supports the Everyday Math Program in both the Essex Elementary and Memorial School  - reinforcing math concepts taught in the classroom in a fun and interesting way.

Folk Songs: A Study in Form, Heritage & the Sea – a program designed to introduce children to local history through the stories of folk songs.

Afterschool Program: Intro to the Culture & Geography of Asia – a program that introduces the many fascinating points of interest as it pertains to the cultures and geography of Asia.

The purchase of 25 Apple laptop computers and cart for Essex Elementary School, giving our children today’s tools for spontaneous exploration and learning.

EES Greenhouse Project -  a wonderful greenhouse built behind the school to be used by children to learn about nature and science in their own “backyard”.

Middle School/High School Grants

The Study of Contemporary Art – this grant helped to fund a special initiative taken on by the High School Art Department, allowing the Department Head to take a special course to become certified in contemporary art education. This certification helped achieve the goal of completing research on the teaching of contemporary art for grades 7-12 and providing lesson planes/units, materials, etc. to be shared with the school district’s art department.

DECA Funding - DECA is an organization of high school marketing students who learn how to apply general marketing concepts in a realistic and competitive scenario.  The high school’s DECA team has been phenomenally successful over the years – often traveling and winning in national competitions.  Spaulding has been a consistent supporter of this important MERSD organization so that they have the resources necessary to travel and compete.

MX Hornets Robotics Team - The Robotics program is an extra-curricular activity where a team of students organize themselves to plan, fund and execute a robot development project that culminates in a regional (and possibly national) competition with other schools across the country.  Students volunteer for the team which includes participation and support from the high school, industry sponsors and mentors/parents.   This year’s team started in September and will continue through at least the end of March with an intensive 6 week period of robot design and construction that started on January 5, 2008.  The team’s robot will compete with (and against) robots from other teams in an organized “game” at the regional competition to be held at Boston University in March 2008.

Library of high quality printed artwork for art class instruction - An extensive library of beautiful high quality artwork prints used throughout the district for art class instruction, bringing art to life for our students and introducing them to our cultural legacy.

Weather Station - The purchase of a web-based weather station for the school district, installed at the Middle/High school facility.  This equipment will allow students and faculty to observe real-time weather information.  Faculty and student access will be through the district’s intranet, and through “stickers” that could be placed on district/staff web pages.  In addition, the school would become a part of the Museum of Science / WBZ  “WEATHERNET” system, enabling teachers to access historical records and data.  This would allow people from around the world to view weather data, and visual information from our school.

“Primary Source” professional development resource that focuses on in-depth study of East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa - This grant helped purchase a district partnership in “Primary Source”, an organization that provides professional development opportunities in global studies and inclusive American history for teachers K-12.   The focus is on global awareness and in-depth studies of East Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, including languages and cultural exchanges involving faculty.

TI Navigator  - The Navigator system is a combination of hardware and software that allows information from individual students’ graphing calculators to be collected in a central location, the teacher’s computer, so that each student’s work can be tabulated, displayed or otherwise used in class. For example, students may be working individually or in small groups to come up with one data point. As each individual or small group determines its data point, that data point can be sent to the teacher’s computer along with those of the other students.  Students would be able to see, in real time, their contribution to the collection of data as it is being plotted. Another key benefit of the Navigator is the instant feedback it provides to the teacher about each student.

Submarine Field Trip - This initiative provides a truly unique and unprecedented look into the “physics of Submarines” at Naval Submarine School, (SUBSCOL), Groton CT.  Submarines are arguably the most sophisticated engineering & applied physics marvels of the world, only rivaled by the NASA space shuttle itself.    Students will be given detailed tours and participate in operational trainers and simulators, specifically designed to train the officers and enlisted members of the U.S. Submarine force, in the physics that apply to all tactics of submarine warfare.  Students will see and experience firsthand the kinematics of submarine motion, how pressure and buoyancy physics affect real submarine dynamics and damage control, the application of Newton’s laws of motion in three dimensions of a 7000 - 9000 ton submarine.  Electricity, electronic, light and sounds principles of physics will be shown in action as applied to sophisticated ship and SONAR systems, periscope implementation and navigation in three dimensions using the most advanced tools ever designed. Only from seeing and hands-on experience of these devices, will students truly appreciate all the physics they have learned in the class room and how “Physics truly is everywhere”, even many hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, on and in a U.S. Navy submarine.