Grantees
Since 1999, we have awarded more than 2,500 individual grants totaling over $8 million to help public school teachers and other educational professionals improve student achievement. Below are are a few stories about our grantees' work. View profiles and brief descriptions of our grantees dating back to 2003.
Hinckely-Big Rock Middle School, Big Rock, Illinois
Big Rock Middle School Teacher Blown Away By Results of Alternative Energy Project
Matt Olson of Hinckely-Big Rock Middle School used a NEA Foundation-Nickeoldeon Big Help Grant to teach his students about the pros and cons of alternative energy and to provide them with the skills they'll need for the green jobs of the future. Students conducted research, designed and built solar cars and wind turbines, and investigated other possible solutions for the current energy crisis. Olson even used his grant funding to help build a wind turbine, which he used as a learning tool and a power source for the school. Watch the video and hear the students’ ooohs and ahhhs as they discover the power of alternative energy.
Foothill Technology High School, Ventura, CA
Project Hello: Love Grows Between Freetown And Foothill Tech
Three years ago, Foothill Technology High School English teacher Melissa Wantz was struck by an idea while driving to school. She was inspired by Ishmael Beah’s haunting personal account of the war in Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone, to think differently about classroom boundaries. Wantz decided to try to tap into the power of social media by creating an international social network for students at Foothill and Sierra Leone, culminating in a book of art and stories.
Norristown Area School District, Pennsylvania
All the Healthy News that's Fit to Print
With the help of a grant from the NEA Foundation, Lorette Vacchiano and elementary students from the Norristown Area School District in Pennsylvania are sharing the good news about healthy living. They created the Healthy Times student newspaper to reach students in seven schools with lessons about health, and are addressing social issues like bullying. The program has allowed these students to improve their writing, reading, interview skills and they have had a chance to learn from professional reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Meadowview Middle School,Mount Airy, NC
Meadowview Science Students Infected With an Outbreak of Learning
How does an eighth grade teacher instill in students a curiosity about science, while sharing essential life learning skills?
An intriguing diagnosis tested by Melissa Hamlin, a science teacher at Meadowview Middle School, is to bring out students’ inner scientist. She encouraged her students to choose a human disease to investigate and allowed them to incorporate other subjects to support their study.
Hamlin’s holistic approach included the entire eighth grade class and blurred the traditional lines between subject areas.
Cowpens Elementary School, Glendale, SC
Students Explore the Power of a Solar Future
Elementary school science teacher Lorraine Moore wanted her students to “experience the power of solar energy, as scientists and as citizens.”
Through the NEA Foundation-Nickelodeon Big Help grant program, her “Solar Science, Solar Society” project allowed her fourth and fifth grade students to examine solar power through experiments, hands-on investigation, and debate.
Watch the video below to see what they learned.
Lorraine MooreDuration: 3:00
To watch and share this video on YouTube, click here:
Potowmack Elementary School, Loudon County, Virginia
History Is a Walk in the Park
Aldie Mill, Oatlands, and Belmont Plantation: for many residents of Loudon County, Virginia these are just points on a map. But for the fourth grade students of Potowmack Elementary School, they are much, much more.
The students’ study of Virginia history was transformed into a learning adventure with a series of field trips that brought local history to life. Instantly, students’ walk through a park became a step back into time, as they retraced the path of Civil War soldiers and peppered their guide, a Civil War re-enactor in full uniform, with questions about the lives of the soldiers who camped there 150 years ago.
North Brook Elementary in Vale, North Carolina
The Sound of Learning Is Music to Our Ears
Elementary music educators jazzed up a traditional poetry lesson for fourth and fifth grade students with the help of a NEA Foundation grant.
Using the Garage Band computer program, students integrated writing and musical composition lessons by setting their poetry to musical rhythms they created. Watch the following video to find out more about what these students learned.
Leanna StroupDuration: 3:45
Spring Hill High School, Columbia , Tennessee
Facebooking the Bard: Using Social Networking to Better Understand a Literary Classic
Meet Portia. She’s a “strong, noble born Roman woman, wife to Brutus.” Her hobbies include attending chariot races, going to the theater, and watching gladiatorial matches. She was born on October 14, 69 BC. And she’s on facebook.
Welcome to the world of “Facebooking the Bard.” Dreamed up by facilitating teacher Lori Napier and 10th grade English teacher Pamela Pruett at
Cresenta Valley High School, La Crescenta, California
Preparing for a “Green” Future: Students Build and Design Hybrid Go-Kart
For engineering teacher Greg Neat, the Cresenta Valley High School’s Tech Shop is a place where students apply the concepts they are learning in the classroom to solve real-world problems. By bringing their studies to life, he is helping them better understand algebra and physics and teaching them vocational skills for future careers.
With “green jobs” likely to be a driving force in the future American economy, Neat applied for and received a $5000 NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grant focused to give his students the knowledge and competencies to prepare them for the rapidly changing job market. His goal: give his students the understanding and technical skills to design and build a hybrid go-kart.
Molokai Middle School, Molokai, Hawaii
Access Equals Success: Students Provided with Necessary Resources to Compete in Science Fair
Molokai is known as the “most” Hawaiian island because of its unspoiled natural beauty, authentic culture, and resistance to embrace the commercial tourism industry. In fact, there is so little automobile traffic that there is not a single traffic light on the island.
The absence of mainland tourists and luxury resorts is a benefit of living on Molokai, but as a result, the island also lacks sufficient employment opportunities for adults and education resources for its students.
This is a reality that Jennifer Ainoa’s seventh-grade students at Molokai Middle School face every day when learning the basics of scientific inquiry. In order to give her students access to the resources necessary to make them successful, Ainoa took the initiative and developed a common sense proposal for a NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grant.
Egremont Elemetary School, Pittsfield, MA
Creating a “Model” Community: Geometry and Social Studies Concepts Come to Life for Fourth-Graders
Sheila Irvin knows that her fourth-grade students at Egremont Elementary School learn best when they are given an opportunity to “play” with the concepts they are learning in their classroom, but finding the resources for hands-on activities can be a challenge.
With this in mind, Irvin developed a proposal for an NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grant to partner with a local museum, an architect, and an environmental consultant to bring to life the concepts she was teaching her students. Her goal was to build a bridge of knowledge between shapes and geometrical concepts they were learning about in the classroom and the buildings, machines and streets that fill their community. As a culmination of the project, the students were tasked with creating a model neighborhood.
Marlboro High School, Marlboro, New Jersey
Understanding the Global Village: Connecting with Entrepreneurs via Microfinance
Shanna Howell was searching for ways to open the “global eyes” of her ninth grade social studies students. Howell, a teacher at Marlboro High School in Marlboro, New Jersey, was seeking an approach to teaching world issues to students that was more interactive and hands-on than traditional textbook lessons. In discovering the online micro-lending website Kiva, Mrs. Howell came across a platform that would quite literally allow her students to invest in their learning.
Civicorps Elementary School, Oakland, CA
The Students are the Real Superheroes: Fourth-Grade Class Creates “The Comic Book of Oakland’s Black History”
“Have you ever wondered where African-Americans lived before they came to California?” asks Nathaniel Keller, a fourth-grader at Civicorps Elementary, in the introduction to his essay on black history in Oakland, California. “If you don’t know, they came from the south. Some people might think that they had very little problems, but they had a lot of problems.” Nathaniel goes on to describe the life for many African-Americans after immigrating to California around the turn of the 20th century. In order to better understand this little-known history, he would suggest that you read his comic book.
Normally filled with superheroes or jokes, a comic book may seem like an unusual vehicle for teaching and learning about history. But Nathaniel’s teacher, Sumita Soni, knows that comic books have also been used for much more than entertainment and it served as a perfect tool to solve a variety of the challenges she saw in her classroom.
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