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BLACKSTONE VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
EDUCATION FOUNDATION
2009-2010 Grants to Teachers
The Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce Education Foundation is pleased to announce that nearly $22,000 has been awarded to 15 successful applicants for grants that support the development of 21st century work and learning skills among our students. This year's grant cycle attracted 30 applications from member schools with requests totaling over $91,000. Many thanks to the businesses and individuals who contribute to the Education Foundation and who participate in the annual Golf Tournament, and particularly to the Lampin Corporation in Uxbridge for their generosity and commitment to supporting educational efforts in the Blackstone Valley. The successful applicants are:
Blackstone Valley Vocational Regional School District
- $500 Watch your Mouth. Dental Assisting students will develop and present informational presentations on several dental related topics to Blackstone Valley middle school students. Their goal is to educate these young people on the importance of maintaining good oral hygiene, the importance of seeing a dentist and of protecting their teeth in order to maintain them for a lifetime. Students are expected to learn about dental research, public presentation and the nuance of their profession.
- $4500 Clean Tech Awareness and Outreach. This grant will support Valley Tech's continuing efforts to augment their clean energy initiative by developing and integrating clean energy instruction into academic subjects across the curriculum, English, Math, Social Studies, Science and Guidance. In addition, a 2010 Clean Energy Expo will connect various school districts, community organizations and businesses. A clean energy competition for middle and senior high schools in the district will be sponsored by BVT.
Douglas High School
- $1800 Biotechnology II: Adding Best Practice Manufacturing and Engineering Design Technologies to Core Curriculum. Faculty at Douglas High School will build on and enhance their new Biotechnology program by adding important manufacturing, engineering, and technology components to the basic curriculum. By upgrading the curriculum to include 'best practice manufacturing' and state of the art engineering design technologies, students will be ready for a broad range of lucrative 21st Century careers in the Biotechnology industry.
Grafton High School
- $300 Microsoft Certification Center. Through a previous grant, a Microsoft Certification Center was developed in Grafton High School to allow students to become fully certified in each of the Microsoft applications for use as a worthy resume entry and foot in the door of good employment opportunities. This grant funds a number of full or partial scholarships for additional students to take advantage of this certification program.
- $1000 Virtual Internships This grant supports a pilot program which will offer a limited number of virtual internships within the Business Department through a simulated experience. Using an online computer tutorial, students will work for a 21st century 'real boss' , who gives them an assignment to complete for a customer. The goal is to create a realistic internship experience for the students without ever leaving the building.
Hopedale High School
- $2500 Codes and Ciphers in Mathematics and the Real World. This grant will provide support for the development of a curriculum that will provide eighth grade students with an opportunity to learn about the mathematics of codes and ciphers and their relevance to the national defense, to security in business transactions, and to law enforcement. The program will continue the partnership with Raytheon as part of the Peak Intellectual Experience (P.I.E.) for all Hopedale eighth grade students.
Mendon-Upton
Miscoe Hill School Mendon
- $2100 Save the Environment: Near and Far. This project will be carried out by 240 seventh grade students who will take on the role of an environmental advocate to protect their local environment and the world's rainforest environments. The project will be supplemented with guest visits from several local environmental programs.
Nipmuc Regional High School
- $2500 Project Tomorrow. This grant will afford 30 high school juniors a chance to prepare themselves for post secondary options by collaborating with colleges, businesses, and community leaders in meaningful, practical ways. Students will have an opportunity to practice and demonstrate competence, using a well known model defined by Tony Wagner in his book The Global Achievement Gap.
Millbury High School
- $500 Field Days in Business/Economics and Science/Technology. High School Students will use their own career inventory results, interests and abilities, and the courses they are taking, to research their own career pathway in science/technology and business/economic careers. Students will have the opportunity to visit the Federal Reserve Bank and Microsoft and interact with specialists in both settings.
- $2000 Bread Winners. High school students will gain academic, social, and work skills as they develop and run their own small bread baking business. Bread will be donated to local food banks as well as being sold in the school community.
Northbridge Middle School
$500 A Spray for a Brighter Day. This grant will support a program that supports the connection between Going Green at Northbridge Middle School and skills needed for 21st century careers. Students will research and learn about the effects of toxic cleaners on human health and the environment, formulate and compile a recipe book for non-toxic cleaners, hear from a very successful local entrepreneur with a business in the non-toxic cleaning field, and create their own non-toxic cleaner for use at home.
$540 Let's Put Northbridge on the Map. The goal of this project is to encourage students to discover and share math concepts that exist in their own community. Students will explore places of interest in Northbridge and create math problems that relate to what they find. These problems will be submitted to the National Math Trail website, where students from classrooms in 26 states and two foreign countries participate.
Sutton High School
- $1800 Cedar Swamp Nature Trail Restoration. This grant will provide partial funding for a community wide effort to restore impassable sections of the Cedar Swamp Nature Trail. Students will develop increased awareness about their local environment and diversity in nature as well as learn about land conservation, landscape architecture, cartography, and plant identification.
Touchstone Community School
- $616 Sustainability Education Initiative: Solar Energy Device Demonstration Projects. Continuing with their efforts to give students educational activities that provide practical knowledge and understanding and that will empower them, Touchstone students will learn fundamental concepts of how energy can be harnessed and converted into usable forms. Students will learn and try out the application of scientific and mathematical principles in hands on activities and document their learning experiences in written and graphic formats.
Uxbridge Public Schools
- $800 Green and Clean! Working with a local business owner and author of a book on eco-friendly cleaning, high school students will create and teach a lesson plan to younger students about eco-friendly 'green' cleaning products. Students will learn how to make their own cleaning product and will test their effectiveness using the scientific process. The students will then create a booklet of eco-friendly cleaning recipes and tips.
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