RAFT Blog, News, and Events

Featured Articles and News

DreamBox Impact Series: Milpitas Unified School District

April 1, 2025

Engaging EL and SPED Learners Through Hands-On STEAM For the past two summers, RAFT has partnered with Milpitas Unified School District to bring hands-on STEAM learning to the district’s Extended School Year (ESY) summer program. This past summer, 230 fourth- through sixth-grade Special Education (SPED) and English Learner (EL) students became environmental engineers-designing water filtration…

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Bringing Stories to Life: RAFT’s Intersession Program at Northwood Elementary

March 18, 2025

This winter, Northwood Elementary students in Berryessa School District embarked on a creative journey through RAFT’s three-day Intersession program. Designed to spark imagination and hands-on learning, the program engaged 66 students in grades K-5 in the art of puppet-making, storytelling, and performance, culminating in a special showcase for families. Student-made marionette puppets displayed with crafting…

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DreamBox Impact Series: Oak Grove School District

February 27, 2025

Empowering Newcomers Through Hands-On STEAM Learning In Summer 2024, students at Oak Grove School District‘s Newcomer Summer Academy embarked on an innovative hands-on STEAM adventure. Through RAFT’s creative reuse materials and engaging activity kits, 75 students explored the mysteries of space while strengthening their English language skills, guided by 3 dedicated teachers. Hands-on learning is…

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Sparking Curiosity through Hands-On Learning with Jeffrey and Maureen Fox

February 26, 2025

For over 30 years, RAFT has provided resources and support to local educators and students. RAFT’s commitment to hands-on learning for STEAM subjects has evolved to include activities such as STEAM Project Kits, as well as programs like our Makerspace and Maker Mobile activities, and most recently a STEAM Dream Summer Camp for students around…

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Celebrating Black History Month with RAFT’s Makerspace in a Box

Feb 2, 2018 |

In honor of Black History Month, each week RAFT would like to pay tribute to African-American inventors, scientists, and engineers. The list of African Americans who have invented a multitude of items in the course of their lives is endless! These inventions range from…

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Introducing Sarah Slavin, New CEO of RAFT

Jan 29, 2018 | Comments Off on Introducing Sarah Slavin, New CEO of RAFT

Sarah is excited to lead this outstanding organization into its next phase of innovation and impact. SAN JOSE, CA, January 30, 2018 –  Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT), a non-profit organization and leading provider of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) based hands-on learning,…

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Use the Winter Olympics to engage your students

Jan 20, 2018 |

The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics are right around the corner! This worldwide event offers excellent opportunities to use the Olympics to inspire your students to learn about many mathematical concepts such as slope. How can the Olympics help students understand slope? Think of ski…

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Impacting Children Worldwide: RAFT’s Trip to Kenya

Jan 16, 2018 |

RAFT employee, Sylvia lodge, recently made a trip to Kenya and was able to visit a school in a Maasai village. The school employed one teacher who worked with about 59 students ranging form three to twelve years of age. They were having classes…

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RAFT Impacting Children Worldwide – The Syria Story

Jan 6, 2018 |

This past year, RAFT members Consuelo Montoya and Carol Muhn took RAFT kits to Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon for the more than 280,000 school-age refugee children not able to attend school. As Carol Muhn recounts, “We taught the teachers at Beyond Association’s Child…

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Let’s Celebrate National Dice Day

Dec 4, 2017 |

Did you know that each year on December 4th in the United States people observe National Dice Day?  Many games use dice as a way to add random challenges by generating numbers from a toss of the dice. The value of the toss is…

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