When researching a partner for our school that we did not already have, I tried to explore somewhat outside the box. Our school has several great partners. Some of these partners include: Publix, Chick-fil-A, Great Harvest Bread Company, Top Dog Gymnastics, and many more. I wanted to look beyond the restaurants and grocery stores and try to find something different. I wanted to find something that was really neat that the kids would get excited about. I also tried to think about proximity to the school, and that's when it came to me....Lockheed Martin. For as long as I can remember my Dad worked at Lockheed. I loved the family days when we could go and tour the planes and bring home gigantic posters. I thought I was the coolest kid in 3rd grade when he brought some of the memorabilia to school on career day. What kid doesn't like air planes and space. That's where my idea came from and the research went on from there. Lockheed has a program called "Engineers in the Classroom" where professionals come to share about air, space, weather, technology,and much more. Their goal is to get involved in clubs that encourage learning in science, math, engineering, and technology to get kids excited about those fields of education for future jobs. I was surprised by what I found and definitely want to look in to learning more about this potential partnership.
Learning about grants provided me with all kinds of new information that I had never thought of before. I couldn't believe all the grants available. There were tons! The only problem was weeding through them to try to find the one that would be a good fit for my needs. Learning more about grants and looking in to how they are written and/or applied for was very interesting. I will be following up on these sites to see which ones would work best for my school.
Your school partner sounds great. I enjoyed looking at different companies to see what kind of community involvement they were promoting. Lockheed Martin seems like they are making it fun for kids to think about their future. I think these kinds of partnerships give children ideas and opportunities about their future that they would otherwise not get.
ReplyDeleteI agree that weeding through the grants was exhausting. I did not know were so many grants available to teachers/schools. I found one that will be beneficial to our school and I'm going to ask our English Coach if she will help our school write a grant.
I agree with what you both said about the weeding through the grants, but what an opportunity to help bring some funds into the schools. It would be so cool if you could be awarded an Engineers in the Classroom grant.
ReplyDeleteYvonne, I love your colorful blog.
Lockheed starts like a great partner for your school. I also tried to think outside of the box for my school. Our partners include Chick Fil A, some other local food places, and Carustar (which has been going under due to the economy and flooding from 2009). I wanted to find a big corporation that might already have a program set up for school partnerships. It sounds like Lockheed has a great program set up already as well!
ReplyDeleteThe search for grants can be overwhelming, but I also found it to be inspiring. I can't believe how much support is available for teachers out there. It definitely requires a little bit of work, but paperwork really isn't that bad when think of what you can get for it.