2022 Grants 

PUBLIC PREP (NEW YORK CITY) 

Public Prep is a successful network of non-profit, single-sex, tuition-free, elementary and middle charter schools across Manhattan and the Bronx.  We’re happy to support two programs this year.

Portable Maker Space and Curriculum

“Maker spaces” provide students with opportunities to create, problem solve, take risks, explore, and gain STEM literacy. Hands-on projects support self-directed learning and build students’ confidence in their ability to try new things, engage complexity, and persist through difficult tasks. 

A portable Maker Space that rolls into classrooms will give Girls Prep the capacity to swifty transform any classroom into a STEM learning space. Using diverse materials and tools, students will have the creative freedom to engage their imagination, spirit of innovation, and intellect as they discover ways to use math, science and design to build and shape their world.

The grant will also include developing a curriculum aligned with grade-level STEM standards to strengthen math and scientific knowledge and inquiry. This curriculum will be anchored by the Agency for Design Framework, which teaches students to develop a sensitivity for design by learning to look closely, explore complexity, and find opportunity. 

The portable Maker Space cart and curriculum will be piloted in 2nd and 3rd grade at Girls Prep Bronx II during the 2023-2024 school year. The Foundation will fund half of the $8,250 cost. This will support teacher professional development, a Maker Space Coordinator, Maker Space curriculum development, a portable Maker Space Cart, STEM materials, and program documentation.

Future City pilot program

The Future City program is a non-profit national competition sponsored by the engineering community to promote technological literacy and engineering to middle school students. The Future City program will provide Girls Prep 7th and 8th grade students with opportunities to strengthen their knowledge of STEM by applying math and science to real world problems. Students learn to use the Engineering Design Process, where they identify a problem, learn the specifications of the challenge, brainstorm solutions in partnership with peers, design a city, build the city, then test and redesign to improve their work. The process is imaginative, rigorous, and requires students to iterate ideas, draft digital plans, communicate their concepts both verbally and in writing, and physically construct a model of their city based on specific criteria.

During the spring of 2023, Girls Prep will provide professional development for the core support team for this new initiative and engage the Girls Prep Bronx Middle School 7th and 8th grade classrooms in a “green city” design project, during a “Challenge Day Competition.” Each class will have one day to conceive, design, build and present their city for review. This mini process will orient students to the spirit of Future City and help inform their decision to join the Future City competition in the fall. 

During the pilot phase, five teams of five students per team will meet with the Future City coordinator twice a week after school to develop and test their ideas and design and build program deliverables. Students will also expand their knowledge of city design and engineering through work with an engineering mentor and field trips to the Museum of the City of New York and the New York City Transit Museum.

The Foundation will fund half of the $10,000 cost, which includes:

  • Teacher professional development

  • Curriculum development

  • Materials, including glue guns and soldering irons

  • Field trips to The Museum of the City of New York and the New York City Transit Museum

  • STEM materials including Arduino Education Starter Kits

  • Transportation

  • Registration fees

GIRLS ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP ACADEMY (LOS ANGELES)

We’re glad to be supporting the Girls Academic Leadership Academy in Los Angeles (GALA) for the fourth year. GALA is the only all-girls STEM-focused public school in California. Their students come from 81 zip codes; 65% of their students identify as people of color; 98% of the last two graduating classes went on to college; and more than 65% intend to major in STEM. This year we will renew our support for a program that was a great success last year. 

Financial literacy math project

The Foundation will support a “Reality Store” project for all of GALA’s middle school students (350 students, ages 11-14 years old). The Reality Store is a financial simulation that teaches financial planning, goal setting, decision making, and career planning. The young women will calculate, among other things, after-tax monthly salaries, percentages of income that must be spent on basic necessities, loan payments, and interest rates. The program will help students see math in a practical light and will highlight the importance of math in their everyday lives.

After several weeks of preparing materials and training student managers, teachers will introduce students to basic financial planning concepts in classroom preparation sessions. After the classroom component, the students will visit the “store” they helped to design and build, which will consist of 15-20 booths. Each student will visit the booths with a mock debit card and checkbook. Each booth will represent an aspect of adult life where money is involved, e.g., Statistics (where students choose their career and calculate their after-tax monthly paycheck), Banking, Investments, Housing, Utilities, Child Care, Insurance, and so on. When students visit a particular booth, they’ll have to spend money for that service or necessity, and deduct that amount from their paycheck or bank account. By visiting the booths (some of which are mandatory, and some of which are optional), the students learn about making wise financial decisions, and learn how much money they might need to make as an adult to sustain a particular lifestyle.

The Foundation will cover the entire cost for the Reality Store project, which is $3055. Approximately 350 students will benefit from the program.

THE GIRLS’ MIDDLE SCHOOL (PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA)

The Foundation has supported programs at The Girls’ Middle School since 2010. This year, we’re happy to continue our support for a valuable and fun program. 

Build-A-Circuit Kits

As we have for several years in the past, this year we will support GMS’s use of Chibitronic circuit kits. The kits, which were designed by a woman affiliated with the MIT Media Lab, help instructors explain how electrical gates -- the basis of all computer chips -- work. The girls build several simple circuits for themselves, connecting batteries and LEDs in various ways with conductive copper tape (no soldering required). As GMS noted, “for many girls, this is their very first experience making an electronic circuit and these materials make abstract concepts accessible, understandable, and lead to successful completion.” They also encourage creativity within a scientific framework.

The students take home their completed projects at the end of the unit and can use them as personalized reference guides. This year, we will fund 65 kits, for the entire Eighth Grade class, for a total of $2175 for 65 kits.

STUDENT LEADERSHIP NETWORK (NEW YORK CITY) 

We have supported Student Leadership Network (and its predecessor organizations) with a variety of grants since 2007 and we're happy to continue our support again this year. Hundreds of young women get a quality single-sex education at these schools across New York City.

Ecology program

The Foundation will contribute partial funding to a winter ecology program for students from SLN’s four New-York-area schools (Astoria, Booklyn, East Harlem, Queens). The Christodora Winter Ecology Program is a seven-week science program for middle school students, covering topics including:

  • human impact on the environment

  • where drinking water comes from

  • conservation

  • the impact of urban sprawl on the environment and animals

Activities include dissecting owl pellets and identifying what the owl ate, and examining how animal skull formations show if the animal was a predator or prey.

The program has expanded to 339 students and costs $27,000. The Foundation will contribute $4500.