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PWCS Education Foundation Awards Innovative and STEM Grants
The PWCS Education Foundation recently announced the recipients of its Innovative Grants and new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Grants funding for the April 2009 cycle. The Grant Committee selected five grants for full or partial funding for a total of $21,931 in funding for this cycle.

Bull Run Middle School will receive $2,580 for “Flipping for Foreign Language-A Tour of Latin America," which creates multimedia presentations using Flip Video Camcorders and other audio recording devices for students working in groups to create a virtual tour of a Latin American country.

Coles Elementary School will receive $4,080 for “See It! Read It! Hear It!,” a program that uses a digital visual presenter to magnify literature so that all children, including those with special needs, can see books or other materials that a teacher is reading aloud to them. Research shows that interactive read-alouds are beneficial for children who are learning to read.

Gravely Elementary School will receive $5,000 for the “PWCS Consortium of Western Elementary Schools Robotics Club.” Gravely Elementary will use the funds to establish an after-school Robotics Club for the Western-end elementary schools, to include Bristow Run, Buckland Mills, Glenkirk, Gravely, Mountain View, and Tyler Elementary Schools. These clubs will partner with Battlefield High School student mentors to give elementary school students exposure to engineering, robotics, and science to spur their interest in pursuing careers in related fields.

PACE West will receive $5,368 for “Flailing Seamus Studios Productions Promotes Powerful Tool for Literacy,” to build a recording studio that will allow teachers to assist special education students to reach the same educational goals as regular education students. The project will use a music studio constructed by PACE West’s high school shop students to produce music as a motivational tool that helps special needs students retain information and improve social skills. The music studio will be constructed in an existing storage room located in the school.

The PWCS Office of Special Education will receive $4,774 for "Get in Touch," a program to improve vocabulary development and increase language acquisition among students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing through the use of interactive and multimedia lessons. Through the use of touch-screen laptops, students will be able to access visual learning materials to help them acquire the necessary skills to become fluent readers and fluent communicators.

The PWCS Education Foundation has provided more than $444,000 in grant funding for the Innovative and STEM Grant programs since 1999, which allow schools and departments to implement programs that would not be possible otherwise.