Thanks to the generosity of Wayland families and local organizations, the Wayland Public Schools Foundation (WPSF) recently awarded $172,000 in grants to the Wayland Public Schools. Every year, Wayland Schools and classrooms (K-12) are the recipients of teacher grant requests geared toward enriching the core curriculum, and funding technology and cutting-edge programs that would otherwise go unfunded.   With school budgets under increasing pressure, WPSF’s grants are critically important to maintaining the tradition of excellence in Wayland classrooms.

 

The Wayland Public Schools Foundation is a parent volunteer organization dedicated to funding innovative educational resources at all five Wayland public schools. Since its inception in 1983, the WPSF has raised $1.7 million for approximately 500 teacher grants. Foundation grants awarded are made possible through contributions directed to the Wayland Public Schools Foundation by Wayland residents and local businesses. The Foundation’s Annual Appeal, the annual Fall Party, the annual Elementary School Spelling Bee, and the HATS OFF (Honor and Appreciate Teachers and Staff) program are the Foundation’s primary fundraising campaigns and events! To help support innovation in the classrooms, please visit www.waylandpublicschoolsfoundation.org.

 

Thank you to corporate sponsors, Middlesex Bank & Reveal Imaging Technologies, for their support of the Wayland Public Schools Foundation.

 

A wide range of technology and innovative initiatives was recently funded in all subject areas.   A brief summary of the 2010-2011 grants awarded follows: 

 

Interactive Boards Pave the Way to Differentiated, Engaging, Collaborative Learning – Funds the purchase of nine interactive whiteboards, software and training for the third through fifth grade classes at Happy Hollow School. This gives teachers the ability to reach all types of learners with instant access to engaging images, videos, interactive lessons and the Internet.

iBooks for Project Based Learning – Provides five student laptops for project-based learning initiatives in the WHS Social Studies department. This helps students learn how to conduct research, use wikis to collaborate, and create digital films for the Wayland High School History Project.

Digital Classroom – Implementing 21st century skills in Foreign Language acquisition – Provides an interactive whiteboard for foreign language classes at WHS that offers a more visually stimulating presentation of material and facilitates an organized way of sharing and storing information taught in class.

From Pad to Pad: Going Paper-free with the iPad – Funds the purchase of e-books, productivity apps, hardware and accessories for an iPad for the purposes of assessing its potential as both a tablet computer and an e-book reader for teachers and students at WHS.

Budding Photographers – Provides WSPN, Wayland High School’s award winning online publication, with a digital SLR camera and zoom lens in order to cover more stories with engaging photographs and sound slides.

Script to Screen – Funds the purchase of four shotgun microphones to be used in this new WHS class “Script to Screen”. Students will write and produce four short films and host a film festival in May.

Lights, Camera, Learn! – Provides two HD cameras for the Media Center. The current supply of cameras does not support the demands of the 900 students enrolled at WHS.

 

Display Materials for Kindergarten Classes – The best way to reinforce the learning that happens in art class is to allow children to see the results of their efforts and share their work with our community. This grant will supply efficient, effective and visually pleasing display materials.

Support Strings! – Funds the purchase of two new instruments to be housed at WMS; one ¾ size cello and one ¾ size double bass, to replace older instruments that are seeing some wear and tear.

USB Keyboards for WMS Music Room – Incorporates more technology into the music curriculum. Given limited classroom space, USB Keyboards allows multiple students the ability to make creative use of software and piano skills learned in class.

Interactive Music Technology – Provides interactive whiteboards, projectors, sound systems and software to be used in the general music classrooms at Claypit Hill and Happy Hollow. This technology is currently standard practice in general music classrooms today and enhances learning with rich audio, visual and interactive materials.

 

The Math Corner – Equips WMS with the necessary funds to develop a dedicated space within the library where students can find books on mathematical ideas and concepts discussed in math class, as well as engage in math-related games such as logic puzzles, quizzes, SuDoKus and chess.

Claypit Hill School Organic Garden Expansion – Supports the expansion of the very popular and successful Claypit Hill School Organic Garden, which teaches students about life cycles, nutrition, water conservation, sustainability and other environmental science topics.

Greene Triple Router Table – Gives the Applied Science department at WMS a new router station in order to provide a safer, cleaner and more efficient workspace for students working on various wood working projects.

Virtual Chemistry Laboratory – Allows WHS students to explore aspects of a nuclear chemistry lab that are too dangerous to do hands-on. Using software, students will be able to conduct experiments with radioactive materials through a virtual model.

Labquest for Physical Sciences – Provides accurate and remote data collection devices for four WHS physics and chemistry classrooms that enable new lab experiments to be introduced into the curriculum.

Jill Darling, Wayland Middle School science teacher uses Vernier probes with students Daniel Nguyen and Nick Memoli. The probes were funded by the Wayland Public Schools Foundation. Vernier probes were also awarded to the high school science department this year as part of the Labquest for Physical Sciences grant.

 

Environmental Education to Environmental Stewardship in Action – Funds an environmental science community service project that provides WHS students with hands-on experience of solving a local environmental problem — endangerment of turtles and habitat fragmentation along Route 27 at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

Engaging Elementary Engineers with Robotics – Provides Bee Bots and Probots to engage the creative engineer in our kindergarten through third grade students. This is an exciting hands-on extension to existing curriculum that develops problem solving, programming and other vital skills.

Earthkeepers: Fostering Observation and Stewardship in Middle School Students – Creates a novel, hands-on curriculum giving students the ability to document the development and re-population of a rare toad species into the ecosystem in a partnership with Drumlin farm.

 

IPods for Reading Fluency – Provides iPods for an entire grade of elementary students enabling them to listen to audio books and record their own stories. Students will develop greater reading fluency and comprehension, and will also become better writers as they create podcasts of their stories in Writing Workshop.

Happy Hollow 4th grade students using Wayland Public Schools Foundation funded "IPODS for Reading Fluency"  The rockstar,(four pronged adapter), allows multiple students to listen to books together, thereby encouraging discussion within the groups.  Students also use the Ipods to record podcasts of their own stories in Writing Workshop. The WPSF awarded IPODS for Reading Fluency to the 3rd grade this year.

 

Project Adventure Low Level Challenge Course – Funds the purchase and installation of a low ropes course at WMS designed to foster problem solving, trust, leadership and cooperative teamwork.

 

Wayland RISES – Provides a year-long collaborative professional development program for all Wayland High School and Wayland Middle School teachers aimed at further developing student-centered learning environments using Web 2.0 technology.

K-12 Fine Arts Professional Development – Provides seventeen K-12 music, visual art and theater educators with professional development sessions focused on specific areas of arts education.

Dark Tide: Great Boston Molasses Flood – Funds the purchase of fifty copies of “Dark Tide” for two eleventh grade A.P. U.S. History classes. The book fills a critical gap in the curriculum and will be discussed with the local author Stephen Puleo during Winter Week.

Using Historical Fiction in Social Studies Classes – Provides the eighth grade class at WMS with 240 copies of “The Rock and the River”, an historical fiction novel by Kekla Magoon. This book will anchor the unit that explores the different voices of the Civil Rights Movement.