Express Ideas in Film, Share a Poem a Day, Integrate The Arts & More
January 15, 2014
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IN THIS ISSUE
Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities
Resource Roundup
Online Learning Plus
STEM Gems
"Worth-the-Surf" Websites
Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities
Join a Community of Readers
The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), aims to restore reading to the center of American culture by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. The initiative includes innovative reading programs in selected cities and towns, comprehensive resources for discussing classic literature and an extensive website providing comprehensive information on authors and their works. Approximately 75 organizations in communities of varying sizes across the country will be selected to participate in The Big Read from September 2014 through June 2015. Eligible applicants include organizations such as literary centers, libraries, museums, colleges and universities, art centers, historical societies, arts councils, tribal governments, humanities councils, literary festivals and arts organizations. K–12 schools, school districts, boards of education or other school governing bodies, whether public or private, are not eligible applicants but may partner with eligible applicants.
Deadline: January 28, 2014
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Showcase the Role of Technology in Education
Do you have awesome student filmmakers in your class who want to show the power of technology in their classroom? If so, invite them to make a short film—less than three minutes—for the opportunity to show their film at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the first-ever White House Student Film Festival. Students’ films should address at least one of the following themes: (1) how technology currently is used in their classroom or school; (2) the role technology will play in education in the future. Students might consider how technology helps with personalized learning, online learning, global collaboration, student creativity, making and tinkering, project-based learning or critical thinking. Examples include showing the use of technology as a creation tool, the use of technology in new and innovative ways or the use of technology to access high-quality online content and resources. The video contest has been created just for K–12 students. Finalists will have their short films shown at the White House. Finalist videos may also be featured on the White House website, YouTube channel and social media pages.
Deadline: January 29, 2014
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Increase Awareness of Women in Mathematics
The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and Math for America are cosponsoring an essay contest for biographies of contemporary women mathematicians and statisticians in academic, industrial and government careers. The essays will be based primarily on an interview with a woman currently working in a mathematical sciences career. This contest is open to students in the following categories: Grades 6–8, Grades 9–12 and College Undergraduate. At least one winning submission will be chosen from each category. Winners will receive a prize, and their essays will be published online at the AWM website. Additionally, a grand-prize winner will have his or her submission published in the AWM Newsletter.
Deadline: January 31, 2014
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Spotlight Summer Learning Opportunities
The Excellence in Summer Learning Award, sponsored by New York Life and the National Summer Learning Association, recognizes an outstanding summer program that demonstrates excellence in accelerating academic achievement and promoting positive development for young people. The award includes national recognition, increased press opportunities, conference presentations and complimentary registrations, professional development opportunities for staff and increased publishing opportunities. Public or private organizations or agencies serving young people between kindergarten and grade 12 over the summer months are eligible to apply.
Deadline: February 14, 2014
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Champion the Arts in Education
Vans Custom Culture is a national high school shoe customization contest where schools from all over the United States compete for a chance to win money for their art programs. Registered schools will receive four pairs of blank Vans sneakers to be customized in four themes: Art, Music, Action Sports and Local Flavor. (Only the first 2,000 schools to register will be eligible.) The Top Five finalists will be flown to New York City for an exclusive final event where the winner will be selected. The grand-prize–winning school will receive a $50,000 prize for their art program and the chance for their shoes to be produced and sold in Vans’ retail stores. The four runner-up schools will also receive money for their art programs.
Deadlines: February 14, 2014, for registration; February 28–April 7, 2014, for submission of images
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Plus: Through a partnership with Vans Custom Culture, Americans for the Arts has designed the Arts Education Navigator, a series of ebooks intended to help educators, students and advocates navigate the complex field of arts education. Each ebook in the Navigator series covers a specific topic, ensuring arts education supporters are equipped with the knowledge, statistics and case-making techniques needed to effectively communicate with decision-makers. The first two ebooks are entitled Getting Started and Facts & Figures.
Click Here to Download Free eBooks
Participate in an Ideas Festival
Sponsored by the Bezos Family Foundation, the Bezos Scholars Program at the Aspen Institute seeks students who are independent thinkers, demonstrated leaders and engaged community members. Student scholars will meet one another and engage in seminars and informal meetings with the international leaders, acclaimed thinkers and creative artists who will participate in the annual Aspen Ideas Festival, June 26–July 2, 2014. Following attendance at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the student/educator scholar teams will return home and create Local Ideas Festivals in their schools. Applicants must attend public high schools (including charter and magnet schools) where at least 25 percent of students are eligible for the free/reduced lunch program. Potential scholars must be legal US citizens or Permanent Residents in their junior year with a GPA of 3.5 or higher and be taking Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes. Scholar applicants should demonstrate leadership in school and the community and have scored exceptionally well on PSAT/SAT/or ACT.
Deadline: February 18, 2014
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Generate Excitement and Passion for Reading
Are you or someone you know doing something original, creative, exciting to foster a love of reading? The National Book Foundation (NBF) is accepting nominations for its 6th annual Innovations in Reading Prize. The foundation is particularly interested in applications from people and organizations that have developed interdisciplinary approaches and incorporate innovative thinking in design, technology, social activism or other areas. Those selected will receive $2,500 each and be featured prominently on the foundation’s website and in other digital publicity that reaches around the world. Potential candidates can enter themselves for consideration or be nominated by others. The complete guidelines are available on the application form.
Deadline: February 19, 2014
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Supplement Your Stretched Budget
GetEdFunding is CDW-G’s website to help educators and institutions find the funds they need to supplement already stretched budgets. GetEdFunding is a free and fresh resource, which hosts a collection of more than 2,000 grants and other funding opportunities culled from federal, state, regional and community sources and available to public and private, preK–12 educators, schools and districts, higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations that work with them. The site offers customized searches by six criteria, including 41 areas of focus, eight content areas and any of the 21st century themes and skills that support your curriculum. Once you are registered on the site, you can save the grants of greatest interest and then return to read about them at any time.
Click Here to Visit Website
Resource Roundup
Read and Share Children's Literature
Not all lists have the practical use included in The New York Public Library’s (NYPL) 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2013. A group of the library system’s children’s literature experts reviewed more than 1,000 titles published in 2013. Readers will find plenty of variety in this list—from stories that reveal feats of bravery to quests for justice and redemption to friendships lost and found. Many of the stories are centered on classic themes that never grow old. In the pages of these books, heroes and heroines find ways to slay dragons, right wrongs and prevail against all odds. They offer reassurance and inspiration in a world that can sometimes seem strange and dangerous. You can search the top-100 list by age, genre or topic (multicultural, graphic books, friendship, just to name a few). A short review gives a sense of the storyline. If you have a New York City Public Library Card, you can check out the book online—immediately, if it’s available as an ebook. For those outside the reach of the NYPL, a printable PDF includes titles of all the recommended books to take along to whatever local library you might patronize.
Click Here to Access Recommended Children’s Books
Click Here to Download Children’s Booklist
Take a Minute to Share a Poem
Created by Children’s Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt, PoetryMinute.org helps teachers share poetry with their students by providing a new poem for each day of the school year, Monday through Friday, from the beginning of September until the end of June. By sharing a new poem with your students each day, you will introduce them to a wide variety of literature and many authors of children’s poetry, improving their literacy and their love of reading. Visit the home page to see each day’s poem. All poems on the website are reprinted by permission of the author or publisher.
Click Here to Access Free Daily Poem
Visualize a Historic Moment
Let Freedom Ring! is a lesson on the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The lesson encourages students in grades 3–5 to visualize the historic moment of Martin Luther King’s stirring “I Have a Dream” speech through text and photographs. They will see the crowds, hear the words and let King’s powerful imagery awaken their thirst for justice in the world today. In addition, students will learn about the life and work of this civil rights leader. They will listen to a brief biography, view photographs of the March on Washington and read a portion of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. After studying King’s use of imagery and allusion, students will create original poetic phrases about freedom and illustrate them with symbols representing the forms of freedom that have yet to be realized in the United States.
Click Here to Access Free Lesson
Online Learning Plus
Develop Digital Fluency
Participants in ISTE’s online Mobile Learning Academy will explore the implications of mobile learning and build the skills for successful integration. In this five-course series, administrators, technology coaches and teachers will investigate mobile learning from top to bottom, starting with assessing their school or district’s readiness. The following courses are available in January 2014: Course 1: Evaluating and Planning for the Mobile Learning Landscape; Course 2: Developing Digital Fluency; Course 3: Seamless Mobile Technology Integration; Course 4: Implementing Effective Mobile Practices; Course 5: Digital Age Students.
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Exchange Ideas About the Art of Teaching
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) offers tuition-free workshops around the United States. They also offer longer summer seminars and institutes (three to five weeks) on a variety of interesting topics, some of which take place in Europe. The Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops for School Teachers address topics ranging from “Abraham Lincoln and the Forging of Modern America” (June 23–27 or July 14–18) to “Emily Dickenson: Person, Poetry, and Place” (July 6–11 or July 20–25) to “On Hallowed Ground: Gettysburg in History and Memory” (June 8–14 or July 6–12). Among the Summer Seminars for School Teachers are “Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales” (July 6–August 14), “Philosophers of Education: Major Thinkers from the Enlightenment to the Postmodern Era” (July 13–August 1), “Great Adaptations: Dickens in Literature and Film” (July 7–August 1) and “Memories Divided and Reconciled: World Wars I and II in France Today” (June 29–July 24). Summer Institutes for School Teachers include “Teaching Shakespeare” (June 29–July 26) and “Banner Moments: The National Anthem in American Life” (June 30–July 25).
Deadline: March 4, 2014, for applications
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Get an Inside View of American Diplomacy
US Secretary of State John Kerry will introduce “Diplomacy in Action,” a free online conference for teachers and students, as part of the Inter-Agency Initiative on Learning between the Smithsonian Institution, National Park Service and Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the US State Department. Three sessions, hosted by the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access, will be presented on February 12, 2014, beginning at 10 a.m. (ET), by experts from each agency, highlighting objects in their respective collections that exemplify the idea of diplomacy. The sessions are presented in conjunction with the Smithsonian Quests digital badging program. Students who attend the online conference will have the opportunity to earn the “Diplomat” badge by completing an assigned task that will be reviewed by a Smithsonian expert during the session.
Click Here for More Information About Online Conference
Click Here for More Information About Quests Program
STEM Gems
Combine Literature with Science Exploration
Story Time From Space, with support from with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization charged with managing US science research on the space station, will send children’s books and demonstrations to the International Space Station (ISS). While in space, astronauts will videotape themselves reading books to the children of Earth. The videos will be edited and placed in the Story Time From Space library, housed on the Story Time From Space website. Astronauts on the ISS will also conduct and videotape educational demonstrations to complement the science concepts in the Story Time From Space books. To make Story Time from Space even more useful to educators, the team will create a cross-content curriculum to support the Next Generation Science Standards. All of these materials, along with the videos from orbit, will be posted on the Story Time From Space website, providing easy access for educators, families, libraries, science centers and others.
Click Here to Visit Website
Develop a Core of Math Problems
Opus is a free math problem bank that aims to help middle school mathematics teachers build math assignments aligned to the Common Core standards. To find problems on Opus, search by entering a topic and selecting a grade. You can also find problems by clicking the “browse the Core directly” link on the Opus home page. Either way, when you find a problem, you can save it to your free Opus account where you can then generate a Word doc or Google Document of all of your saved problems. You can also create an answer sheet in your Opus account.
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Search Common Core Problem Bank
Design Mathematics Models
With MathDisk’s Math Builder tool, you can design mathematics models that your students can use online. You can also download the models and worksheets to use offline if you install the MiBook software on your desktop or on your Android or iOS device. If you don’t have time to create new materials, the MathDisk gallery has pages of models and worksheets from which you can choose. Everything in the gallery, like everything you create through MathDisk, can be downloaded and/or embedded into your website or blog.
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Access Gallery
Investigate the Science of Snow
Created by the American Chemical Society, the Chemistry of Snowflakes video tracks the formation of snowflakes from their origins in bits of dust in clouds that become droplets of water falling to Earth. The video explains that when the droplets cool, six crystal faces form, because water molecules bond in hexagonal networks when they freeze. Ice crystals grow fastest at the corners between the faces, fostering development of the six branches that exist in most snowflakes. As snowflakes continue to develop, the branches can spread, grow long and pointy, or branch off into new arms. As each snowflake rises and falls through warmer and cooler air, it thus develops its own distinctive shape.
Click Here to Access Free Video
Immerse Students in an Ocean Expedition
Scientists and others are going into the deep-sea vents, and they’re hoping to bring students along for the ride. Dive and Discover, a website that provides research resources related to ocean exploration, has just begun its 15th expedition, this one exploring hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean. The 14-day journey takes place in the East Pacific Rise, an ocean ridge about 600 miles south of Manzanillo, Mexico. The explorers are aboard a research vessel called Atlantis, from which pilots remotely control an underwater vessel named Jason. During the expedition, which runs until January 22, the work of scientists, ship crew members and engineers is being captured in video, photographs and daily written updates that are posted to the Dive and Discover site. Teachers and students are invited to share the classroom activities they develop around the exploration. The site also provides explanations of ocean phenomena related to the work, interactive illustrations to illuminate deep-sea features and animals, and a “Mail Buoy” that lets students communicate by email with the scientists at sea. According to expedition sponsor, The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the work being shared on Expedition 15 fits into multiple parts of the Next Generation Science Standards for grades five through high school.
Click Here to Visit Website
"Worth-the-Surf" Websites
Join a Naturalist on a Global Journey
Darwin, A Naturalist’s Voyage is a virtual tour of Charles Darwin’s nearly five-year journey on the Beagle. The tour has 14 segments chronicling Darwin’s voyage from start to finish. Throughout the tour, viewers will see sketches from the journey, hear readings from Darwin’s journals and learn about the journey as a whole. The virtual tour is not limited just to Darwin’s work as a naturalist; it also explores social issues of the time, such as slavery.
Click Here to Visit Website
Bring Color into the Classroom
HaringKids brings the art of Keith Haring to life while offering a creative and engaging collection of more than 180 art-based educational resources for the early childhood to high school levels. Engaging, fun animations and drawings are distributed throughout the interactive site map. Hovering over accessible areas prompts movement and color from Haring’s lively drawings. For teachers hoping to bring a little color into their classrooms, HaringKids showcases the artist’s attitude and style while dishing out loads of educational art fun. Pop-art games and interactive coloring books offer younger students inspirational learning experiences. Lesson plans, such as “Hip to Be Square,” combine music, math, dance and drawing. “T-shirt Designer” lets students have a blast while exploring career options in art and fashion. In addition, teachers and students can view others’ work in the School Projects Gallery.
Click Here to Visit Website
Make Strategic Choices
Endgame: Syria is a news game that examines the complexities of the Syrian civil war through card-based gameplay. Played from the perspective of the Syrian rebels, each turn is divided into two phases, political and military. The consequences of players’ strategic choices, all of which impact the final outcome, are clearly outlined by the game, showing the options available to the Syrian rebels and the long and difficult road to potential war resolution. Players must balance the in-game currencies of morale and support against the costs of fighting in the war, and decide when and if the time is right to accept a peace treaty. Events in Endgame: Syria can be replayed to show how different choices and strategies lead to different outcomes and maximize players’ understanding of this complex environment.
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