For more than 100 years, SRP has been committed to more than just delivering reliable power and water to its customers. As an active member of the community, SRP annually gives more than $1.3 million in corporate contributions to educational programs and partnerships that provide teacher training, mentoring and hands-on learning.
More than $24,000 was awarded for 13 projects at 12 schools. Schools receiving funds for 2012-13 include:
Collier Elementary School (Avondale), $2,000 – Fifth-grade students will study the Emancipation Proclamation (January 2013 marks the sesquicentennial) through student-led research and the creation of poems and art about American heroes and Abolitionists. Funds will be utilized to purchase Scholastic Dictionaries and project supplies and support a field trip to Gangplank Avondale (a state-of-the-art technology facility). Students will exhibit their work at the Avondale Public Library, Gangplank Avondale as well as the school’s Social Studies Night as a part of their Black History Month celebration.
East Valley Jewish Day School (Chandler), $1,883 – Each student will work with a senior buddy from the community to create an online scrapbook. Students will teach the senior buddy the use of technology while the student will learn from the senior buddy about the lives that they have lived and record their history. The project will culminate with a public viewing of the work in May 2013.
Ryan Elementary School (Chandler), $1,859 – Grant funds will be used to purchase the Arizona Atlas books and CD-ROMs and a subscription to the Arizona Story website. These resources will allow fourth-grade students to become critical thinkers, create hypotheses and form opinions from their study.
Walker Butte K-8 School (Florence), $2,000 – Funds will be used to purchase equipment to facilitate a video conference experience with students around the world through the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC). By adding multimedia storage and analysis equipment to the library, more detailed collaboration can occur to bring Arizona history, geography and biology to life for students across the country while bringing the other parts of the country and world to the students.
Scott Libby Elementary School (Litchfield Park), $2,000 – Fifth-grade students will learn about our nation’s history by evaluating how critical turning points have shaped and affected the current world in which we live. Funds will be used to create six History Immigrant Trunks, which will provide hands-on experiences for students and spotlight the lives of six immigrants from the early 1900s through the use of artifacts, written documents, literature and various media.
Rhodes Junior High School (Mesa), $2,000 – Approximately 500 seventh-grade students will explore history from the Civil War to the great Depression to create historical characters. They will create journals and scrapbooks of their characters as well as give oral presentations. Funds will be used to purchase historical artifacts, educational DVDs and supplies.
AZ Conservatory for Arts and Education (Phoenix), $2,000 – The school currently is without a library facility and grant funds will be utilized to purchase a class set of Kindles so that students in sixth through twelfth-grade will have access to primary sources and in-class reading resources. Students will have access to eBooks, Project Gutenberg and the university and public library systems.
Kyrene del Milenio (Phoenix), $1,965 – Fourth-grade students at Kyrene del Milenio and Emerson Elementary School (Mesa) will create and publish a text e-resource related to Arizona history. Students will engage on a personal level to understand the validity of text (factual evidence) and its importance so that they can be prepared to act as informed citizens. Working with Arizona author Conrad Storad and the Arizona State University Special Collections, students will use their research, reading and writing skills to produce creative and innovative descriptions of Arizona’s rich history.
St. Jerome Catholic School (Phoenix), $1,544 – Grant funds will be used to purchase a revised edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica for the school library, which has an up-to-date presidential biography series. The Social Studies and Language Arts educators will assign grade-appropriate, research assignments that will include the writing of notes, outlines and rough drafts and writing a final report.
St. Theresa Catholic School (Phoenix), $1,547 – Funds will be used to purchase a subscription to Time for Kids magazine for the students in Kindergarten to sixth grades. Common Core Standards (CCSS) require 50 percent of the reading curriculum be derived from informational text, and the grant will allow the school to rebalance access to nonfiction texts to meet CCSS guidelines.
Combs High School (San Tan Valley), $2,000 – Funds will be utilized to purchase the Discovery Education Streaming program, a resource that provides students with visual representations of past events, people and places. The program engages students in visual learning as well as providing materials to enhance learning on various subject matters.
Combs High School (San Tan Valley), $2,000 – High school students will work in the forensics lab at the Arizona Museum of Natural History and work on an archaeological dig at Mesa Grande ruins. The students will re-create a prehistoric site and create a detailed description of how these native ancestors evolved culturally and socially. Funds will be used to purchase a laptop computer and digital camera. Through this project, several students have been offered an internship with the Museum of Natural History.
Curry Elementary School (Tempe School District), $2,000 – Fifth-grade orchestra students from six elementary schools will take a yearlong journey of music through social studies. Students will be met each day with a character or representative of the country under study. The room will be transformed with period art, literature, instruments, maps, food, vegetation and landscapes. Music is generally formed as a function of society and plays an important role in maintaining culture, identity, daily activities and traditions. Funds will be used for guest speakers, historical maps, costumes and world instruments.
