GRANT AWARDS
Round 43 - Fall, 2008 

PRIMARY/ELEMENTARY LEVEL AWARD

Title: Math Fair 2008
Level: Elementary
School: Cardale Elementary School, Brownsville Area School District
Contact:  Jolene Hough, Natalie Zuchelkowski, Glenda Frease, Carolyn Marucci, Paula Petrie,   Valerie Kovach, Nancy Thompson, Diane Satifka, Suzanne Morris, Andrea Roebuck

A math fair for the entire school that focuses on the fun and relevant applications of math lessons is the main purpose of this grant.  Student-created stations along with a variety of teacher-designed activities will engage the children in math-based fun.

Title:  Garden Full of Knowledge
Level:  Elementary
School: Cardale Elementary School, Brownsville Area School District
Contact: Jolene Hough

This program intends to put fun into learning math as fourth and fifth graders host a variety of math activities for the kindergarten, first and second grade students.  Math skills that will be reinforced through the activities include: greater than/less than (duck pond), ordering (roll ’em, roll ‘em, roll ‘em), measurement (frog jumping contest), calculator skills, mystery number, and money (make a dollar) to name a few.  With the math fair activity, older students will develop their math skills further as they prepare for the event and the younger students will be inspired to see math can be fun.

Title: United States Regions Tour
Level: Elementary
School: Central Elementary School, Elizabeth Forward School District
Contact: Emily Pasquale, Lauren Luffy

In this program, Social Studies will come alive as students participate in
hands-on activities during a “tour” of the United States’ regions. Throughout each stop of the journey, the students will work on an ongoing “travel guide” which will be bound and published at the culmination of the tour.

Title:  Watch Us Grow          
Level: Pre-K
School: Pre-K Counts Programs at White Oak & Centennial Elementary Schools, McKeesport Area High School (McKeesport Area School
District) and McKeesport Hospital’s Tender Care,
Contact: Patricia J. Scales, Catherine S. Lobaugh, Lyndsay Kengle, Margot Minor, Jonna Flannery

This program is designed to build advocacy for quality Pre-K programs within the MASD communities and to enhance literacy opportunities for children in the Pre-K Counts initiative. Children in the early childhood program will “adopt” community members and/or organizations and invite them to watch them grow. Children will make pictures and share milestones with their community partners as they correspond (3X) via mail. (The logo, stickers, etc. for the letters will be designed by the high school’s Graphic Occupations students.) Each communication will give evidence of the student’s progress throughout the school year. Additionally, community members will be invited to monthly Read-Aloud and other activities that revolve around the story of the month. One of the activities for the year will be a Pre-K Counts birthday party to promote the continued commitment to quality early childhood programs.
Organized by the high school’s child development classes the event will feature a parade with the high school mascot and band. Community partners
as well as other dignitaries will join in the celebration and all children will receive the book, “Shoelaces” by Suzanne Lieurance, keeping with the yearlong theme of giving all children an equal footing as they step up to the starting line of school.

Title: Mother Goose Differentiated Style
Level: Elementary
School: South Allegheny Early Childhood Center, South Allegheny School District
Contact: Joan C. Packrone, Noel Skorvan

This grant program creates a Mother Goose unit of study employing differentiated activities and learning centers. Students will listen to, read and write nursery rhymes. They will use imaginative play through the
re-enactment of the rhymes with puppetry and mini-plays. They will design the set for their productions. Children will build reading fluency, math and
creative skills while engaged in their activities and gain confidence in their emerging reading abilities.

Title: Picture Me Proficient
Level: Elementary
School: Trinity North Elementary School, Trinity Area School District
Contact: Carolyn Diederich, Paula Anderson, Heather Mihalek, Gina Roman, Melinda McClintock,
Joyce Lewis, Linda Horner, Karen Drexler

This grant program seeks to provide practice for all students in math and reading using a game format and periodic competitions with the goal of improving academic achievement and improving school-wide test scores. Practice games with specific, grade-level designed questions geared to the state academic standards will be used in each classroom. Other questions will be printed and placed throughout the school and students will earn rewards for correct responses. In addition, students can research and
develop questions. The hope is that students will have a fun and interactive way to demonstrate their knowledge and prepare for the PSSA tests.

Title: Sing Me A Story
Level: Elementary
School: McClellan Elementary School, West Jefferson Hills School District
Contact: Amy Davidson, Nancy McCall

This Great Idea program will create a cross-curricular unit in which students will sing, play instruments and dramatize with a book read in library class. The unit will culminate with a musical and dramatic
performance of the books introduced for the school, parents and community.

MIDDLE/INTERMEDIATE LEVEL AWARDS

Title: Surviving the Islands
Level: Intermediate/Middle
School: Bethlehem Center Middle School, Bethlehem Center School District
Contact: Julie R. Gillogly, Julie Venick

The purpose of this grant project is to provide each student with a survival pack of resources to use for state assessment preparation. Built around the
theme of the TV series, Survivor, students will be using the resources in their pack in conjunction with a newly implemented web-based computer
tutorial program, Study Island. The survival study kits will be utilized in Math and English classes and in the computer labs with the Study Island tutorial as students prepare for PSSA testing.

Title: Step Into a Series
Level: Intermediate/Middle
School: Brownsville Middle School, Brownsville Area School District
Contact: Martha Davis, Lori Rohrer, Sara Pockstaller, Stacy Victor, Leanna Saghy, Charmagne Clark

This grant program encourages reading by using series books. Series books are often considered familiar because the same characters and general
characteristics often appear from book to book. Children can move easily from books within a series as opposed to hopping between separate types of
books. Utilizing the series books, students will be able to explore different concepts beyond theme, characters, setting, etc. and examine how an author works, what does the author change, and what new things are developed in the character. While reading the books, students will be engaged in a variety of activities to enhance their understanding of their
book. Book displays will share with others in the school and community (through the public library) information about the book series, the authors,
and the students’ response to the book.

Title: Put Your Duds in the Suds
Level: Intermediate/Middle
School: Brownsville Area Middle School, Brownsville Area School District
Contact: Mary Seelye, Abby Thompson, Roxie Furlong, Dave Beregi, Jason Marvin

This grant will provide students the opportunity to learn an important but often over-looked life skill, doing laundry, in order to improve personal
appearance and hygiene and moving toward self-sufficiency and independence.

Title: Goodbye Garbage...Hello Composting!
Level: Intermediate/Middle
School: Charleroi Area Middle School, Charleroi Area School District
Contact: Howard Johnson, Mary Tickner, Joell Miller, Barbra Todaro, Laura Delach, Yancy Sobek, Norman Baker, Monte Maugle, Vince Vitori, Joyce Stanish, Joan Adams, Paula Coles, Bob Whiten

The grant program creates a composting site on school property and students will learn how and what to compost, the uses of compost, and how composting impacts the environment. Students will have lessons on soil testing, soil moisture, light intensity, nitrogen, phosphorus, potash levels and balanced carbon/nitrogen levels and the impact of these levels on plants, gardens, lawns and watersheds. Students will monitor the compost area and develop first hand knowledge and experience about an important environmental issue –
garbage and landfill. Compost will be utilized by the district’s grounds staff and by students for the agricultural/garden area and greenhouse of the
outdoor learning center that is planned.

Title: Let's Get Poppin' with BrainPOP
Level: Intermediate/Middle
School: Logan Middle School, East Allegheny School District
Contact: Linda Withrow

The grant initiates an interactive on-line opportunity for students to learn in each subject and each grade level. Teachers will use this tool in tandem
with the Promethean board allowing for small and large group instruction. Teachers will be able to differentiate their instruction utilizing the tools
on BrainPOP. Integrating more technology in the classroom coupled with introducing new teaching strategies to enhance student learning is the goal
of this program.

HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL AWARDS

Title:  Math Survivor: Out-Think, Out-Solve, Outlast
Level: High School
School: Bentworth High School, Bentworth School District
Contact: Kathleen Fogg, Lisa Dacko, Brian Fredericks

This grant program uses a “Survivor” style game and competition for students to Out-Think, Out-Solve and Outlast their opponents in various math
activities. Not only will students be engaged in solving problems and seeing how mathematics is relevant to everyday life, they will see that math can be fun.

Title: "Voices In My Head" An Audio-Support Library Intervention Program
Level: High School
School: Brownsville Area High School, Brownsville Area School District
Contact: Lynne Hartmann, Denise Dinsmore, Jennie Karwatske

This grant will initiate a library intervention program that provides a multi-sensory learning experience for struggling and reluctant readers. The use of audio books caters to individual learning styles and serves to motivate struggling students. The library and classroom will work cooperatively to provide a series of lessons to enhance the use of audio books. The goal is to improve the literacy skills of the struggling reader and give all students a chance to review materials at their own pace and benefit from the auditory stimulation.

Title: Green Solutions
Level: High School
School: Central Westmoreland CTC
Contact: Linda Butti, Kim Tomajko

Green Solutions is an interdisciplinary unit of study that will enhance students' understanding of the physical environmental changes occurring in
the world. English, Science, and Social Studies classes will be used to guide students as they research an environmental issue, propose a solution
and take some form of civic action. The final projects will be displayed at the culminating activity, the Green Solutions Fair. The purpose of the
program is link academic study to real life problems and solutions.

Title: School-to-Community Video Program Production
Level: High School
School: Laurel Highlands High School, Laurel Highlands School District
Contact: Paula O’Connell, Earl Wingrove, Lori Dicenzo, Randy Miller

Students will write, edit, and produce their own news features and documentary programs to be viewed on the school’s closed circuit television system and the local cable television station. Students will be introduced to a new type of writing and editing. Also, leadership and interpersonal skills, poise, public speaking as well as advanced computer programming skills needed to produce effective and original programming will be learned and enhanced through this grant program.

Title: Shakespeare On the Hill
Level: High School
School: Trinity Area High School, Trinity Area School District
Contact: Mary Ann Berty, Katie O’Lare, Kristen Shaw, Rebecca Booher

Building on a Benedum Foundation grant for Shakespeare in the Schools, this
Great Idea Grant will enhance student excitement about Shakespeare and
theater in the high school as the students plan costumes, decorate the
school, promote and perform Shakespeare’s sonnets, monologues and select
scenes for a “Shakespeare On the Hill Day”.

Title: Stories for Generations
Level: High School
School: West Mifflin Area High School, West Mifflin Area School District
Contact: Betsy Richter, Tim Milko

This great idea has students learning of traditions, values and the past by recording and preserving the stories of selected family/community people.
Modeled on the NPR Story Corps that traveled the country capturing individual personal histories, the students will identify a person they wish to interview determining what they might expect to learn from that person. After lessons on creating questions, interviewing techniques, use of equipment, etc. the students will engage and record the conversation with their selected individual. Through this project students can learn from significant people in their homes and community if they take the time to
hear the stories, ask questions and make connections to their own lives.