Nine projects in Monroe Public Schools’ classrooms have received mini-grants funded by the Education Foundation of Monroe Public Schools.  Together, the grants totaled about $4,000.

     The Foundation’s mini-grant program is the only one of its kind at a Monroe County school district.  A number of the grants deal with technology related projects in the classrooms, helping Monroe Public Schools to be the place where your child succeeds.

     Here are the Monroe Public Schools programs which received mini-grants:

Frances Valdez and Melissa Vanderhorst, Custer Elementary, Musical Composition. This grant purchases 30 xylophones for students so the younger students can learn to play a musical instrument, read notes and write their own music.

Lisa Cole-Flegal, Monroe Middle School, Engineering and Producing Mousetrap Cars.   In this project, students will research design and engineering of today’s vehicles and then use problem-solving skills to design their own vehicles.  Building their own cars, they would race against other students in the MMS hallways.  Ten kits will be purchased.

Lisa Worley, Custer Elementary, Primary Comprehension Toolkit.  Kits and books to be purchased will help younger elementary students to understand what they view, learn and read, and support students in reading in various types of lessons.

Amanda Iacoangeli and Emily Bundon, Waterloo Elementary, Cross-Curricular Inquiry Project.  In this grant, grade-level appropriate text sets will be purchased to engage students as they study world cultures, global problems and teen activism.

Deb Pitcher, Monroe Middle School, Climate Change Solution for Students.  In this program, students will have the opportunity to see how they can make small changes to use less energy.

Suzanne Yorkey, Custer Elementary, Bee-Bots.  In this project, all Custer students – Young 5s through second grade – will learn how to program computers with a Bee Bot, a colorful robot designed to be used by small children.

 Sherry Hunt, Monroe Middle School, Challenger Learning Center.  Students will have a chance to visit the Challenger Learning Center of Lake Erie West, comprised of a futuristic space station providing the experience of working in space and a mission control modeled after the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Melissa Bell, Custer Elementary, Let’s Get Custer Kids Coding…and 3D Printing, Too.   With this mini-grant, four different games to teach students how to program computers will be purchased along with four 3-D pens which students will use to create 3D designs. 

Russell Columbus, Monroe High School, First steps towards implementing the Michigan Science Standards.  This mini-grant purchases three miniature computers that can be customized and configured to collect student-needed data so students can engineer solutions to problems in an inquiry-based environment.  Two inquiry-based lessons will be developed and reviewed for possible adaptation to other courses.