Local school staff pave the way for bright futures

Thanks to the gen­eros­i­ty of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers, local teach­ers recent­ly received $40,000 in Bright Ideas grants to fund their inno­v­a­tive project ideas.

Fund­ing for Bright Ideas grants comes from Coastal Elec­tric mem­bers who allow their elec­tric bills to be round­ed up to the next dol­lar through Oper­a­tion Round Up. Those nick­els and dimes are pooled togeth­er and invest­ed back into the com­mu­ni­ty through the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion.

Since the Bright Ideas program’s incep­tion in 2002, close to $450,000 has been award­ed to give local teach­ers the pow­er to put their cre­ative teach­ing ideas into action.

In addi­tion, the foun­da­tion pre­sent­ed $1,000 checks to 24 prin­ci­pals in Bryan, Lib­er­ty and McIn­tosh coun­ties to be donat­ed to their Prin­ci­pals Funds, with the inten­tion the monies would be used to meet stu­dents’ and teach­ers’ needs through­out the school year.

“These chil­dren are our future and most valu­able resource,” says Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive CEO Chris Fettes, who pre­sent­ed dona­tions on behalf of the Foun­da­tion. “We are here to sup­port the ded­i­cat­ed peo­ple who work hard every day to pro­vide a top-notch edu­ca­tion and enhance our stu­dents’ qual­i­ty of life.”

With eight win­ners, Rich­mond Hill Mid­dle School received the most Bright Ideas grants of any one school this year. Among the win­ners was Lisa Tuttle’s $1,940 grant project, Explor­ing Ener­gy Alter­na­tives, which will allow stu­dents to inves­ti­gate using alter­na­tive sources to pow­er neigh­bor­hoods and then build a mod­el of their com­mu­ni­ty; and Andrew Robertson’s $1,007.86 project, The Effect of Col­or, which will allow stu­dents to research the effects dif­fer­ent col­ors of light­ing have on mood, atten­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty.

Robert Todd at McIn­tosh Coun­ty Acad­e­my (MCA) won a $1,805.26 grant to fund his project, Out­door Class­room Dock with Fish Feed­er. The project will enhance the out­door class­room area, pro­vid­ing eas­i­er access to stu­dents study­ing water qual­i­ties and Geor­gia aquat­ic species. The project will also pro­vide space for demon­stra­tions of vessel/ dock and marine water safe­ty, which like the study of ecosys­tems, are major ele­ments of the Com­mer­cial Fish­eries Path­way cur­ricu­lum at MCA. The project will help pre­pare stu­dents for occu­pa­tions in com­mer­cial fish­eries (one of the community’s two biggest eco­nom­ic indus­tries), along with pos­si­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties with the Coast Guard, U.S. Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources and local/state exten­sion agen­cies.

McAl­lis­ter Ele­men­tary School’s Sarah Chancey won a $763.32 grant to fund her project, 3D Solu­tions, which will allow stu­dents to 3D-print designs they make in a sci­ence unit that focus­es on ero­sion. As a cul­mi­nat­ing activ­i­ty, stu­dents will design solu­tions to ease coastal ero­sion. By design­ing these pro­to­types, stu­dents become real-world prob­lem solvers and can become part of some­thing that can actu­al­ly make a dif­fer­ence in the lives around them.

Tiffany Leon-Peter­son won a $1,894.83 Bright Ideas grant to fund her project, BOOST My Mind­storm. The project will allow Tay­lors Creek Ele­men­tary School stu­dents learn­ing Eng­lish as their sec­ond lan­guage to devel­op in the con­tent area of com­put­er sci­ence through robot­ics, cod­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing. Stu­dents will also enhance their Eng­lish lis­ten­ing, speak­ing, read­ing and writ­ing skills.

At the Brad­well Insti­tute, Ash­ley John­ston won a $913.70 Bright Ideas grant for stu­dents to build a work­ing, large-scale Roman aque­duct. Stu­dents will mea­sure and con­struct the aque­duct, which will use grav­i­ty to allow water to flow into three cis­terns that would, in turn, feed three areas of ancient Rome: foun­tains, pub­lic baths and plumb­ing for wealthy home­own­ers. The final prod­uct will mea­sure approx­i­mate­ly 30 feet long, 5 feet wide and 3.5 feet tall.

Joseph Mar­tin Ele­men­tary School’s Sarah Traw­ick won a $1,985.83 grant for her project idea, 5th Grade’s ExCEL­Lent Muse­um. Stu­dents will explore the school cam­pus to col­lect plant, insect and ani­mal sam­ples that they will use to cre­ate micro­scope slides. Stu­dents will then work in small groups and use the micro­scopes to study cells of their sam­ples. The project will cul­mi­nate with stu­dents research­ing an organ­ism for which they have a cell sam­ple and cre­at­ing a cor­re­spond­ing art project of the cell they observed for a muse­um walk-through event.

To learn more about this year’s Bright Ideas grant win­ners, con­nect with Coastal Elec­tric on Face­book, Insta­gram and Twit­ter.