We've awarded our final EdTech grant of the 2021 calendar year. For the December award, we've selected Tania Castillo, a middle school librarian at the Brookside Intermediate School in Friendswood, TX. The BIS is part of the Clear Creek ISD where Tania leads a lot of MakerEd-related programs for students. Her efforts have certainly crossed over into the STEM space as well and, looking for new opportunities to help students build coding skills, Tania decided to apply for our grant. As always, we're happy to help Tania advance her STEM and MakerEd offerings and it certainly seems like she has some great ideas for classroom experiences already.
Tania works with students from many diverse backgrounds and understands the importance of creating equitable STEM opportunities for all. This factor certainly weighed into her decision when she was evaluating what to request as part of the grant award. Ultimately, she decided to go with Root Robots—largely due to their versatility. We'll be providing Tania with a couple of Root's and accessories for some new classroom coding projects. Since her student body is so diverse, the versatility of the Root Robot is perfect. Tania plans to use it (at the very least) in ELA, math, art, and Spanish classes to help expose students to the potential that unique pieces of technology, like the Root, bring with them.
Using the Root Robot in maker learning.
Tania has dabbled with coding in her library and, as a result of being awarded our grant, she plans to expand those opportunities for students. Since the Root is multi-faceted, she hopes to combine various subjects and expose students to many creative uses of technology. Specifically, she's excited to add more opportunities for artistic expression to the library makerspace. With the Root Robot, students can place a marker in its on-board slot and create programs that make it move around strategically all while drawing out a picture or a pattern in the process. Oh, and yes, the Root is magnetic and it can stick to and scale classroom whiteboards!
Many of Tania's students get to explore and learn in the makerspace as many as three times per week. Having their new Root Robots in the fold will help enhance their existing student support maker initiatives, coding club, and what they like to refer to as Mega Makerspace Family Nights. In creating all these unique opportunities—many of which are now possible with the new Root Robots—Tania hopes to engage as many students as possible. Plus, the Root is a perfect coding tool for students of all ability levels, so it should fit right in! She's also exploring plans to extend these STEAM opportunities to some of the feeder schools in the area. Using what she's learned so far, she's also hoping for some of their current family-oriented opportunities to become more frequent.
Why all students will benefit from the grant award.
As we've mentioned, Tania works with all types of students in their library. For example, with her Spanish students, she plans to have them program the Root to say different phrases—helping them learn better language skills along the way. In ELA classes, she's planning on incorporating storytelling by having students program it in different colors to illustrate how the mood or tone of a story changes. In math, she'll combine programming and geometry to have students draw shapes and calculate values, like Pi, radius, and circumference. Finally, for art education, she's planning on letting students express their creativity and draw custom designs on different surfaces.
In addition to the two Root Robots Tania will receive for her grant award, the Root Classroom 2-pack also comes with a bunch of accessories. These include the foldout whiteboards, a Root Curriculum Guide, charging cables, dry erase markers, and more. Since Tania's ultimate goal is all students learning coding, the Root paired with these accessories is perfect for their library. Beyond that, however, Tania will also spend more time focusing on helping students develop both processing and analytical skills. Using the Root and its coding applications, this is the perfect opportunity to do just that!
Creating equitable STEM opportunities.
Once again, we congratulate Tania on her selection as this month's grant recipient and thank her for applying. Like her, we're confident that these new STEAM opportunities will significantly improve learning for her diverse range of students. Especially with almost half considered socioeconomically disadvantaged, we're thrilled to help potentially spark some new STEM passions! If you would like to apply for our next grant opportunity, the application is now open. We also encourage you to forward it throughout your professional networks. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more.