Dover Middle School teacher, Lisa Dillingham, was afforded the opportunity to purchase a Weather Station for her classroom. The station allows her science students to gather accurate weather data and consequently, analyze, make predictions, and share information based on this data. Beyond the classroom, DMS hopes to become a reporting site for local weather on WMUR.
Sound Technology
Eric Turner, CATA Music Director, received a grant for sound technology that helps run a DBx Graphic Equalizer and a Kustom Monitor. This has allowed students to increase their involvement in the application of sound-technology. While learning about concepts such as wiring connections, matching ohms, signal flow, and sound quality improvement, students have helped to fulfill the school’s mission of integrating technology with the arts.
Homework Help Hotline
Patricia Mulqueen, Dover Middle School (DMS) Math Teacher, is now able to offer online homework help thanks to the Homework Help Hotline SEED Grant. This provides extra math help using the software platform, Electa Virtual Classroom, where she is able to access a whiteboard to virtually recreate math problems and show the steps to a correct solution. Students are able to join in with their own electronic devices, allowing a solution for excess math help that has previously been impossible due to after-school conflicts and lack of transportation.
K’NEX 3-D DNA and Transcription Models
DHS Biology Teacher, Caitlin Tenney, purchased twelve K’NEX 3-D DNA and Transcription Models for use in all DHS biology classes. The kit allows biology students to create 3-D models of a DNA structure. It engages students in hands on learning, while constructing and deconstructing a DNA structure.
Northeast Passage Disabilities Awareness Program Grant
Mary Jean Hippern, DHS Physical Education Teacher, provided approximately 20 wheelchairs to Dover High School, under the auspices of the Northeast Passage Disabilities Awareness Program Grant. The wheelchairs are used four days each semester for educational purposes in physical education classes, specifically in activities that bring awareness to disabilities as they pertain to sports.
Summer Leadership Camp
Kim Stephens, Dover High School (DHS) Dean of Students, received a grant to support the implementation of a Summer Leadership Camp for the Student Ambassadors of Dover High School. The Student Ambassadors take on leadership roles in a variety of clubs, teams, and focus groups, as well as facilitate freshman orientation, disseminating programming information during dozens of student and parent tours and during middle school presentations. SEED has funded summer training for all ambassadors allowing them to help ease the transition for hundreds of incoming students.
Oregon Trail
Anne-Marie Horvath, a DMS classroom teacher was funded to purchase costumes that are reproductions of the clothes worn by pioneering women and children while traveling on the Oregon Trail. The students have discussed each garment’s design, its practical applications, materials used and construction methods. The grant money has also been used to purchase a scale model of a covered wagon and an award winning PBS DVD production of the Oregon Trail.
Printing Press
The SEED contribution of five hundred dollars will allow Dover Middle School art students to purchase a $1700.00 printing press through the guidance of DMS’s art educator, Jo-Ann Gardella. DMS art students created art and raffled it to raise over twelve hundred dollars to support this purchase. The first venture using the printing press promoted social awareness and community concern for America’s Wounded Soldier program. Students were challenged to create an artistic response to raise public awareness. Developing art with the printing press allows prints to be offered for sale and proceeds are donated to this worthy program.
STEAM Academy
Fran Meffen, a Dover Middle School guidance counselor, was granted funding for STEAM Academy, a self-sustaining extended learning program that brings science, technology, engineering, arts and humanities and mathematics to life, through programs such as the FIRST Lego Teams, FIRST Tech Challenge teams and the Simple Machines program. In the fall of 2014, the STEAM Academy fielded two FLL and FTC teams as well as the Simple Machines program funded by a SEED grant. The Simple Machines program uses Lego Educational kits and this program serves as the entry to the Lego track for students.
3D Printer & Computer Programming
John Clark, a Dover Middle School Technology Education Teacher, was granted the purchase of a 3D printer for use in the DMS Tech Ed computer lab. This cutting edge technology incorporates the principles of STEM, as well as computer programming, and allows students to experience the process of additive manufacturing firsthand. The 3D printer fills an important role in the design process, allowing students to go from virtual model to physical product right in the classroom.
Ellis Island Simulation
SEED awarded $720 to a third grade team of teachers for their proposal to conduct an Ellis Island simulation. As a culminating activity to the study of immigration and students’ countries of origin, all Dover third graders participated in a replicated Ellis Island experience. The journey began in their home classrooms through filling out the ship’s manifest, passports, birth certificates, and immunization records. The experience continued on the “ship” (bus), where students were assigned to first class, second class or steerage. Once students arrived at Ellis Island (Woodman Park School) they went through a series of stations simulating what Ellis Island immigrants might have experienced. The stations included medical, logical, language, reading, math skills, and physical testing, along with an inspector interview. This was an all day experience that included all three elementary schools, as well as parents and community members and volunteers.
Northeast Passage’s Similarity Awareness Program
Garrison Elementary physical education teacher, Greg Brown was awarded a $370 SEED mini grant for his Northeast Passage’s Similarity Awareness Program. This program emphasizes the importance of understanding that people with physical disabilities have similar interests as non-disabled individuals through the use of court wheelchairs.
Students Promoting Information on Nutrition and Training
The SEED Innovation in Health Education Grant valued at $550 was awarded to a team of Dover High School Math, Science, and Health Teachers for their Students Promoting Information on Nutrition and Training (“SPRINT”) proposal. With this grant, the teacher team consisting of Amanda Spadafora, Elizabeth Connolly, Katherine Hinkle and Arthur LeClair encourages students to make personal decisions involving diet and exercise that support a healthy lifestyle and personal wellness. Students are able to apply basic knowledge and skills learned in classes (such as health, biology, sports etc.) to not only their personal life, but at the community level. By forming a student organization, the club mentors and members have helped create a culture of health and wellness at Dover High School.
Cells Alive
Dover High School biology teacher, Caitlin Tenney was awarded a $410 SEED mini grant for her proposal entitled Cells Alive. The grant has funded the purchase of speakeasies for hands on learning instruction in her Introduction to Biology classroom. The magnetic activities have helped teach very difficult learning concepts such as cell transport, cell structure and function, ecosystems, photosynthesis and cellular respiration.
Measuring Temperature with Technology
Infrared thermometers were purchased at Dover High School in Chris Taylor’s classes to show other ways of measuring temperature than the standard thermometers. This also introduced how technology changes what is measurable in science.
Online Reading Program
SEED funded a one-year subscription for an online-guided literacy program, for two classes of kindergarten students at Horne Street School. The program allowed teachers to individualize instruction for their students using the technology. The program included interactive eBooks, downloadable books, listening for modeled fluency, reading for practice and an ability to record their reading. Parents were able to access the program at home. As the subscription ran for a full calendar year, the program was used during the summer months to prevent summer regression of skills.
Earth Science- Sampling Rocks
Don Wason and Liz Connolly of Dover High School were able to send students to collect rock samples from Dover and surrounding areas of the Seacoast. The rocks were sent out to a petrographic lab to have thin sections (microscope slides of rock) made. These thin sections can be viewed microscopically by earth science students to develop a deeper understanding of the processes that formed these rocks with a more complete perspective on the geologic history of Seacoast New Hampshire.
Looping Musicians
Students at Woodman Park School worked collaboratively with international looping musician Georg Zohrer, to write and record a variety of songs emphasizing different math facts. Looping musicians produce all of the musical sounds (including drums, keyboards, trumpets, guitar sounds) using their own voice, while recording it gradually on a loop station. Jill Sears and Patty Driscoll’s classrooms brainstormed lyrics for these math songs before Georg arrived in September 2013. Georg spent a total of two days with the students putting the songs to music, and recording the children’s work. In this recording process, children were asked to come up with, and make particular patterned beats by simply clapping, tapping, or vocalizing. Their sounds and beats were recorded and then remixed into a polished song.