The Operation Round Up Board of Directors initiated a program offering small, $500 grants to teachers. Grants were available to K-12 teachers in art and science for the 2018-2019 school year. The funds are made available by South Plains Electric Cooperative members contributing to Operation Round Up. Their monthly bill is rounded up to the next dollar, and the extra change, averaging only $6 per year, funds projects like the teacher mini-grants, scholarships and much more.
Kimberly Daniel is a first-grade teacher at Dupre Elementary with Lubbock Independent School District and is a 2018-2019 Operation Round Up Mini-Grant recipient. Daniel purchased an iPad, OSMO kit and OSMO games with the mini-grant.
“OSMO kits merge the power of exploration and hands-on learning with real-time feedback and invites the students to work collaboratively,” Daniel said. “It’s interactive, and it gives the students something tangible to do.”
Daniel incorporates the use of the OSMO kits in all subject areas. Masterpiece Art, Newton, Tanagram and Coding Awbie, four of the five OSMO games, are implementing teaching aspects such as listening skills, the rules of physics and gravity, inventive ideas, spatial reasoning and self-correction, computational thinking and logical reasoning, teamwork, and problem solving and analytical skills.
“OSMO kits have opened many doors for my students,” Daniel said. “It’s giving kids opportunities in the classroom that they might not have elsewhere. We greatly appreciate it. Thanks SPEC!”
The Operation Round Up Board of Directors created a mini-grant program to help teachers with classroom projects or educational field trips. Operation Round Up approved another three-year cycle of teacher mini-grants.
There are 10 mini-grants of $500 each available during the 2019-2020 school year. Entries must be submitted by May 15, 2019. This year’s grant is available to any K-12 math or language arts teacher if any of the following criteria are met:
- the teacher is a member of (receives electric service from) South Plains Electric Cooperative.
- at least one student in the class is a member of and receives electric service at their home or family business from South Plains Electric Cooperative.
Visit https://spec.coop/content/operation-round to learn more.
