EG Education Foundation Awards Five New Grants

The East Greenwich Education Foundation announced five grant recipients for the school year starting in September, three of them to science teachers at the high school.

EGHS science teacher Christopher Wren was awarded $693.97 for a Composting Project. Students will feed digestible materials from the high school's waste steam into a rotating compost barrel. They will study the bio-geochemical activity as the matter decays into a nutritious supplement for the soil used in the science wing's new greenhouses. This will also reduce the cost of greenhouse soil replenishment.

EGHS science department chairman Nicholas Rath earned a $4,500 grant for his Global Ozone Project. He will acquire ozone detection and meteorological monitoring equipment so students can track the area's air quality. They will then share the information with other students around the globe through a network maintained by Google Earth.

Frank Lenox, another EGHS science teacher, was awarded $4,500 for what he called Starry Nights. With the grant money, Lenox will purchase telescopes to augment the science department's new Space Science elective. The students will learn how to maintain a telescope and to set up a learning laboratory for the public to use. This can give the entire community a greater appreciation for astronomy as a hobby and a science.

Mr. Rath was very excited about all of the grants, particularly the science ones.

"It's wonderful that the Education Foundation has made it possible," he said. "It allows teachers to be creative and develop extensions to the learning experience, to push the envelope."

Other grants were to Cole Middle School tech ed. teacher Steven Garneau for $28,240 for Enhancing Design and Engineering studies. He will purchase a DEPCO Computer Modeling Center that will enable students to design objects, such as air foils (any part of an aircraft designed to produce lift), as part of a "rapid prototype" project, the kind of which is now being employed in high-tech industries.

The only grant awarded on the elementary level this grant round was for Hanaford teachers Linda Cram and Kimberly Bose's Live Mathematics Classroom, for $950. Hanaford teachers will receive  books and equipment to enhance math classes with more hand-on activities.

Unlike in previous rounds, when the EGEF awarded approximately half of the grant money to non-science projects, there were no humanities projects on the winner's list in 2011.

Carolyn Mark, a member of the EGEF board, said that was not intentional.

"What we look at are high-quality applications from teachers," said Mark. "We look equally upon all academic disciplines. It's really about the individual teachers and their applications."

Mark did say that the overall quality of the grant applications continued to improve.

"We're really proud of the fact that we created the impetus for teachers to think outside the box," she said.

For Rath, the grants and the projects they fund have a way of influencing the other teachers in the learning community.

"It's invigorating when you work at a place where a fellow teacher goes to the next level."

"I encourage my group to submit grant proposals and tell them to talk from their hearts and highlight the benefits for the students, teachers and the community. Writing the grant itself is a learning experience."