Come Monday, life will be very different for one member of the Eduporium team. Actually, let’s just get one key point out of the way right off the bat. That member will be me. I’m Andy—part of the Social Media and Marketing team at Eduporium and I'm writing this in the first person. Okay, anyways, this coming Monday, I am beginning a 74-day road trip that will take me to some of the most amazing places across the United States and allow me to visit some of the hardworking educators who are shaping today’s students. Though the idea for a road trip didn’t initially involve teachers, Merge Cubes, (or really even Eduporium), I’m excited with how it evolved and took shape and, needless to say, I can’t wait to hit the road in just three days!
So, how did this whole huge thing come to be? My girlfriend and I started planning the road trip around the entire country two years ago with inspiration from some friends from college who'd made a similar trip. We got really into the planning really quickly and, soon enough, we had an outline for our route. Oh, and we’re bringing our two-year-old Golden Retriever along for the ride.
After saving our money over nearly two years and completely revamping the initial route, we each took on additional part-time jobs this past spring and realized that we’d perhaps be able to save enough money to get on the road in the fall. We knew we wanted to begin toward the end of August and return in November, so it worked out nicely.
In 74 days, we’ll pass through 43 of the lower 48 states and visit numerous cities, sites, and national parks. The only five states we are not going to pass through are North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri. Sorry to everyone there!
Of course, we are tremendously excited to go further from home than we ever have before, and see things like the Grand Canyon, Golden Gate Bridge, Yellowstone National Park, Chicago from the Willis Tower Sky Deck, and we are even going to be staying in a tipi for one night. But, I personally am also looking forward to some unique things, like seeing some cacti and maybe some bison, bringing our dog to a Major League Baseball game, and all of the quirks in different parts of the country.
Since I didn’t have much interest in giving up my role with Eduporium, however, I approached some of our management team in June and we discussed the trip and how I would still be able to do work on the road. Plenty of people do it, so I figured I could be one of them. I also came up with the idea of visiting schools along the way—with a gift for a teacher. After some planning, this “road trip donation program” started to take shape. And, we have the support of one of our newest partners to thank for that.
Seriously, without this support, we would have had to rethink a lot of key things. We contacted some folks from Merge to explain my trip and the kind of project I was hoping to lead. Thankfully, they were on board and excited to help—even offering us three times more than what we’d hoped for! After just a few days, a box of 10 Merge Cubes arrived to our office and I had my donations in hand—with only about a month to go before hitting the road.
For anybody who is not familiar with the Merge Cube (our partnership is still being finalized, so their line of products are not quite yet on our store), it is a three-dimensional, foam cube with a number of small, silver designs on each of its surfaces. When paired with a device, children can point that device at the cube and designs display in a holographic way. It’s an amazing tool to augment traditional learning with augmented reality and the educational content Merge offers is extensive!
The cube can fit into all different school subjects since their digital curricular content covers pretty much everything. Whether teachers are looking for something for science, social studies, history, or geography, the different units provide quite the variety. After creating the account, teachers and students can access various content from their devices and unlock more if they wish. We are incredibly grateful to everyone at Merge who didn’t hesitate to help with this project and sincerely thank them!
As I mentioned, I received the cubes in the mail (I’m currently in the possession of all 10 Merge Cubes) and began the process of figuring out who would get one. At Eduporium, we provide a $500 EdTech grant to a deserving educator each month. The application is open to all teachers, librarians, makerspace managers, or anyone else involved in the world of innovative education. Since launching that program last year, we’ve awarded 15 educators with new STEM tools to use in their various programs.
We have, however, taken many additional applications beyond those but have only been able to select one recipient every month. So, I went through each application and found applicants who weren't selected and who teach in an area I’m visiting. I picked some of my favorite applications and most deserving teachers (it was tough!) and reached out to them with the offer of stopping by their school to gift them their new Merge Cube. Needless to say, there were some pretty excited reactions. And, I’ll be making some school stops in addition to all of the other places, which we’re very excited for!
As of now, the schools I'll be visiting are spread out both in terms of locations and timing. I’ll be hitting two of them in the first five days of the trip during the final few days of August and then won’t be visiting any of the others (as of now) until October. That’s okay though because I’m completely confident that I've chosen some good ones to donate to! My first stop will be in Burlington, VT at the Orchard School this Wednesday.
Others include the Santa Monica Blvd Charter School in L.A., Vista Grande Elementary in San Diego, the Mary B. Austin Elementary School in Mobile, AL, Socrates Academy in Matthews, NC, the Newark Charter Intermediate School in Newark, DE, and the Hudson Montessori School in Jersey City, NJ.
We will be sharing pictures and updates from each of the school visits on both our Instagram and Twitter accounts. So, be sure to follow those if you don’t already! And, now it’s time for a shameless plug. If you’d like to follow our road trip account on Instagram, we'd love having you. Give it a follow for all the updates. Again, I’m very much looking forward to the experience made even more awesome by donating some gifts of technology. And, for that, I say thank you to the Merge team again for helping to make this happen.