DonorsChoose 2008: Sad Engineers :(

Our DonorsChoose blogger challenge ends on Friday, and we've still got a couple of projects left to fund in our challenge. Yes, we've added a few along the way, but there's still a few of Alice's original picks that have been sitting there all month just waiting for your $.

You're making Alice a sad engineer.

And not just Alice, Academic Crossroads has also been waiting to see these projects funded, and even put a plea on her blog. Both of these projects have gone from 0% funded to well on their way to realization, but they each need

Don't let your sisters down, make some kids and teachers happy. Let's fund the two remaining, original engineering projects this week. (And win fabulous t-shirts too...) Details of the projects below the fold.

Infusing Engineering Design into the Classroom!
At a high poverty high school in rural North Carolina, a teacher wants to buy her 200 science students their own engineering notebooks. As she says:

I just completed one of the most AWESOME workshops this summer on the Engineering Design Process and developed some great activities that will "grab" the students attention and will help them "see" the relevance of what they are learning in my classroom!

In order to be able to do the best job in teaching the Engineering Design Process,...each student will need an engineering notebook in order to document their learning, and do so in the correct format. By using the graph notebook, I believe, students will see the value and take their learning, during each of the activities, seriously, thus truly "owning" their own education.

The job market is looking for some real engineers. What a great way to begin building some basic skills and, hopefully, encourage more young people to enter the field better prepared! You can really help me make a difference!!

$340 has already been given to the project, but the teacher needs $246 more to see her students (all 200 of them) have their own notebooks. Please help!

Future Engineers and Designers: Geometry in Kindergartenhttp://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=184806&challengeid=19000&zone=0
This proposal comes from Mrs. N, a kindergarten teacher in a high poverty school in Alabama. She says:

We serve students from all economic and ability levels. Our student population (around 1,000 students) is very diverse so our classrooms are never dull! One challenge we face is appropriately challenging our highest achieving students, especially in the areas of math and science.

Basic lack of funds limits classroom teachers in Alabama to purchase higher quality and interesting supplies and materials because the majority of our classroom supply money is used for consumable materials. ...

This summer, I and fellow co-workers are attending AMSTI (Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative) training for 2 weeks. We have volunteered to give up 2 of our 6 weeks in the summer so we can learn how to better teach our students to problem solve, think critically and learn to understand and love math and science.

In order to help my students learn the basic principles of geometry, I need to build a child-friendly math station. I need pattern blocks in several sizes, tangram sets and geometric manipulatives to supplement the new curriculum that I've learned about. I am so excited about teaching my kindergartners about the difference between pyramids and prisms, rectangles and squares, vertices and edges, etc.

$340 has already been given to this project by multiple donors, but we need another $217 for the project to succeed. Please help!