Tell us the teacher you want to support

Sue Horrocks

"Hi, Thank You for reading this, it seems we have something in common, you really care about kids like I do and are willing to do what it takes for them to have the best education possible. With your help my students will see science much more clearly. When I went to school as a child it was really boring, hands-on was out of the question, that is why I became a teacher! With your help together we can make school an exciting, engaging, learning environment. I see the future in the eyes of my students I hope you do too. Our school wide science lab needs six microscopes, a teachers interactive projection microscope, a slide kit with refills, and nine sets of pre-made slides. Our school serves 350 students in a high poverty, low income community. We have a high percentage of students that qualify for free and reduced lunch. I am proud to say our social economic status does not keep us from learning. We have been awarded California Distinguished School and Title I High Achieving Awards and have raised our state test scores over 300 points in the last eight years. This is my seventeenth year teaching, and I am lucky enough to teach my favorite subjects: science/math/music to all the 130 Kindergarten through 5th grade in our after school program. I believe using a creative hands on approach is an effective way to engage students. I am known around school for innovative, sometimes strange projects. For example, we bake bread, we make fraction pizza, we invent things, we put on science and history based musicals, we build science projects and we love to do crazy experiments. Currently the problem I face is lack of equipment. I am a science teacher with NO microscopes. When I switched from teaching all subjects to math/science I looked around school for microscopes; I found some but they were in pieces and 30 years old! So far I have not been able to get any of them to work. You can imagine it is pretty difficult to do hands on engaging science without microscopes. In just a few weeks we will be studying animal and plant cells, without microscopes students will have to rely on drawings and posters. Can you imagine how excited my students will be if they are supplied with six microscopes and slides? Most of my students have never had the experience of using a microscope, so putting quality equipment in our lab will provide endless engagement. These microscopes have dual heads so that two students can view what is on the scope at the same time. This makes working with a partner much more successful and cuts down on the cost of slides because two students share a scope. Having these six Nasco microscopes will enable a manageable small group of ten-twelve students in several scientific studies. The rest of the students will gladly complete their math and science set work knowing their group will be next. With teachers demonsrtation microscope, I will be able to hook this up directly to my laptop and projector so I can model both use of the equipment and the microscope lessons. This camera will put what is on the microscope up on the big screen. Clearly, you can see how engaging the study of cells and other topics will become. And that would be just the beginning.... Remember with your help together we can make school an exciting, engaging, learning environment. Do you see the future in my students? I do and I hope you do too!