Eduporium Awards Grant to Educator Turning School Bus into STEAM Machine
WATERTOWN, Mass. (PRWEB) July 25, 2018 -- What started as a tragedy for the students and teachers of Livingston Parish Public Schools is quickly turning into a triumphant recovery. Back in 2016, flood waters destroyed much of their school’s Louisiana campus and they were forced to start over in a number of ways. After feeling tons of support from their community, however, the students of LPPS came together under the leadership of Makerspace Manager, Nikki Lavergne, to redesign their learning experiences and redesign their futures.
Fast forward a couple of years and Nikki has been named the third recipient of Eduporium’s Educational Technology Grant. Awarded every month in an amount of $500, this grant program was created to help educators keep up with innovative teaching without feeling the burden of paying for the latest in educational technology. Nikki’s proposal for technology to fill a remodeled school bus transformed into a traveling makerspace was selected by Eduporium earlier this week.
“We are so very excited about this grant opportunity,” Nikki said as she was informed of the news her application had been selected. “We can’t wait to get the bus completed and out in the community.”
Nikki said she really felt the support of the community after the flood and wanted to use the creative spirit of her students to help create something everyone in the area could benefit from. As of now, they have plans to drive their mobile learning lab to multiple neighborhoods, campgrounds, preschools, libraries, and afterschool programs between August and December. They are scheduled to complete the bus shortly, but were in need of some innovative STEAM and MakerEd tools to fill it, which led Nikki to apply for Eduporium’s grant.
“Our goal is to increase participation in in-school and afterschool STEAM and makerspace programs throughout the community,” she said. “We want to have at least several thousand people rotate through our STEAM machine after six months with several hundred of those being at-risk students.”
After reading her application, the Eduporium team had little difficulty deciding who they would award July’s grant money to. As part of her award, Nikki requested a few Wonder Workshop accessories, Sphero Mini and accessories, and some Edison Robots and accessories from the Eduporium store with the intention of putting them to good use come the fall.
“We have gutted the bus and are in the process of having it retrofitted to operate like an RV, so it can run computers and other electronics,” Nikki said.
Once the bus is complete, Nikki and her students will be driving it around and helping make STEAM activities accessible to economically disadvantaged students and minority populations. They will be hosting different community events throughout their parish and allowing all 45 schools they serve to use the bus.
“Our bus has the purpose of lighting the fire of passion in students for science, technology, engineering, art, and math while also pulling in parents and increasing parental involvement,” Nikki said.
The entire operation has been funded by community donations and grants so far. For more information on the Eduporium grant program and how to apply for their August award, click here or contact them by calling 1 (877) 252-0001 or emailing [email protected].
Ahmed Shareb, Eduporium, https://www.eduporium.com/, +1 6176007230, [email protected]
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