Grantees
Since 1999, we have awarded more than 2,000 individual grants totaling over $6 million to help public school teachers and other educational professionals improve student achievement. Below are are brief success stories of our grantees' work. For a complete list of our grantees, visit our grantee archive.
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.
Walker Valley High School, Cleveland, TN
From the earth to the sky: using real-world experiences to teach math and science
Math and Science cross-curriculum
Using a $5,000 Student Achievement Grant received from the NEA Foundation, Luajean Bryan, working with her Walker Valley High School colleagues Eric Swafford and Jenny Borden, created a cross curricular lesson titled "From the Earth to the Sky." The lesson was conceived as a means to increase student interest in math and science courses.
The funds received from the NEA Foundation allowed "From the Earth to the Sky" to come to life, as students conducted research in real world settings that allowed them to apply knowledge from lessons learned in the classroom. Through the program, students flew in un-tethered hot air balloons and took an underground expedition to the Cumberland Caverns.
Seeley Union Elementary School, Seeley, CA
A renewable energy source in Imperial Valley: understanding geothermal energy
6th grade Mathematics and Science classes
Environmentalists often offer the advice to "act locally, think globally." In teaching their sixth grade students the importance of renewable energy, Seeley Union Elementary School teachers Maria Shiffer and Ruben Arreola have the good fortune of having a geothermal energy plant practically in their back yard to help them live these words.
In 2006, with the help of a $5,000 Student Achievement Grant awarded by the NEA Foundation, Mrs. Shiffer and Mr. Arreola created a comprehensive lesson plan for their sixth grade physical and earth sciences class that focused on renewable energy in California's Imperial Valley.
North Clayton Middle School, College Park, MD
Learning by doing: Creating a virtual laboratory for student experimentation
Middle School Science classes
Nezetta Smith, a teacher at North Clayton Middle School in College Park, had a double challenge, a lack of student interest in science, and a lack of funding to support creative approaches to attract students' attention. Teaching in a collaborative setting, she found that students were having trouble with reading, and many had learning and cognitive disabilities.
With a $5,000 Student Achievement grant from the NEA Foundation, she created a "virtual laboratory" to enable her students to tackle experiment-oriented problems via the Internet and sparing her school the costs of maintaining a full laboratory.
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