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In honor of Women’s History Month, it is fitting to pay tribute to the woman who is considered one of the greatest biologists of the twentieth century! Barbara McClintock (1902–1992) was an American scientist and cytogeneticist who focused on color mosaicism in maize, or corn, during the 1940s. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or…

Don’t lose sleep over this, but Daylight Savings Time (DST) is here! On March 11th it’s time to set your clocks forward and say goodbye to one hour of sleep! There’s no time to waste! Make this year’s Daylight Savings Time an engaging and meaningful experience for you and your students. RAFT has plenty of…

Time to get ready fer Pi Day at RAFT me hearties! Set yer compasses an’ sails fer FREE Pi Day activities on March 8th between 3:30 to 5:30 on th’ main poop deck (aye-aye in th’ “Kit Area”) at SJ RAFT! RAFT’s very own notorious wench, Jeanne Lazzarini (RAFT Math Master Educator), prepared a boatload…

Ten third graders and twelve fourth graders in Kathleen Gould’s class at Orchard School District know to turn to RAFT when making creative design solutions! They’ve been on a 17-day Design Challenge journey studying how wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands of birds each year in North America—making turbines the most menacing form of green…

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 practical everyday devices to applications in diverse fields, including physics, biology,…

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, is delighted to announce the appointment of Sarah Slavin as its…

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 slopes! Ask students to watch the Olympics this year on TV…

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 under a acacia tree every day while waiting for a one…

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 Labor Protection Center in the Bekaa Valley how to put together…

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 determined by the uppermost face of the die after it has…