>> FUNDS FOR EDUCATION
Seven teachers within the Baldwin County School district received the Bright Ideas grant.
The Bright Ideas grant program is sponsored by Tri-County Electric Membership Corporation. Bright Ideas funds innovative projects in grades Pre-K through twelfth grade for public or private school teachers in Baldwin, Jones, Putnam, Jasper, Twiggs and Wilkinson counties.
Projects are judged on innovation, goals, learning objectives, student involvement and budget. The scoring rubric breaks these aspects into whether the project offers a creative learning experience, provides ongoing benefits for both current and future students, directly involves the students, has clearly defined goals and objectives, includes an effective implementation plan, has a mechanism for evaluating project success and has an adequate budget summary. Each project can be funded up to $1,500 if approved.
“I can’t thank Tri-County EMC enough for this grant program. It offers resources that we would not have without this grant,” said Linda Colwell, Lakeview Primary School teacher.
Colwell is using the grant money for her project Retelling Stories. Bright Ideas will allow her to purchase felt manipulatives that will be used to retell stories from books the class has previously read.
“Children are naturally excellent storytellers and the board is a multisensory approach that allows the students to lead the lesson themselves,” said Colwell. “I want to make learning fun and this is a game changer for the students that has already boosted reading comprehension significantly.”
As another example, Crystal Kennedy of Lakeview Primary School is using the grant money to adopt a pet chameleon for her class. According to the description of her project, this will be a companionship project to promote a sense of unity, compassion and responsibility in her class through learning about the chameleon and how to care for it.
“We have focused very closely on creating bonds with our students and trying to create a family atmosphere and promote loving and helping one another,” said Kennedy. “Students will research chameleons and make a plan for what his terrarium will need. Once our plan is set, we will start the building process and put his terrarium together. They have already started the planning process and are extremely excited about helping create a loving environment for him!” Stephanie Coxwell at Midway Hills Academy had a similar project named The Chick In that would allow the purchase of chickens and materials to build a chicken coop in the school garden. Coxwell hopes to use the chickens as a learning opportunity for life stages, compassion and farming related lessons that the school already does through the garden.
“ I wanted to expand our garden program. So, I was looking for organic farming opportunities and we already have our own compost so the chickens will be used for fertilizer as part of the natural farming component,” said Coxwel. “And Ms. Lance wanted to expand our social and emotional learning experiences so we will incorporate writing, reading, and socialization through learning the life cycle of a chicken and letting the students interact with them as they grow.”
In addition to these teachers, Tonya Arnold of Lakeview Primary School, Crystal Beard of the Baldwin County Early Learning Center, Shelby Hedgepeth of the Baldwin County Early Learning Center and Sharon Reeves of Oak Hill Middle School also earned grant funding for various different projects ranging from a chance to use a weather station to installing an aquaponics station in the classroom.
“This is more winners than we’ve ever had before, and they won a total of $30,000 overall,” wrote Eric Jones in an email to The Baldwin Bulletin.
The Baldwin County School District is very proud of all the teachers who applied for the Bright Ideas Grant Program and received funding. They hope to see each of the projects succeed and make a difference on the students involved.