RAFT and the Community Support 10,000 Student Learning Experiences
Together with help from the Santa Clara community, RAFT and Intel created 10,000 student experiences using hands-on learning kits.
Volunteers construct kits during Super Bowl Community event
Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT), Intel, and the Santa Clara community came together to build 1,000 educational kits to help support hands-on learning. The kits will support 10,000 student learning experiences and were donated to 18 elementary and 3 middle schools in the City of Santa Clara. The kits were assembled during the Super Community Celebration held at Santa Clara University. The activity was sponsored by Intel and provided guests the opportunity to give back to the community by helping assemble RAFT kits. These ready-to-use activity kits take the prep work out of teaching with hands-on activities and come with all required materials and step-by-step instructions to bring engaging math, science, and art experiences to students.
Volunteers constructed the Colors of Light, Puff Rocket, and Puppy Programming kits. Colors of Light covers physical science and shows students that white light is actually a combination of different colors. The Puff Rocket kit covers earth science and allows students to hypothesize experiment, collect data and analyze forces and motion with a straw “rocket” and an easily made launcher. Puppy Programming reinforces programming techniques such as planning, sequencing, testing, debugging, and creating procedures and loops.
“We’re very excited about our RAFT kits. We’re saving them for a unit at the beginning of the school year [September] on force, gravity, motion, and Newton’s law on kinetic and potential energy. Our students are going to love them. We can’t wait to get started,” said Stanley Garber, Principal of Cabrillo Middle School.
Since 1994, the belief that hands-on teaching builds and reinforces a deeper level of learning that assesses students on critical thinking, evaluation, and research, has been central to RAFT’s mission. To make sure this mission comes full circle, over 700 Idea Sheets are available for free on RAFT’s website. Many of the most popular ideas are available as prepackaged Activity Kits.
All RAFT Idea Sheets and Activity Kits are cross-referenced to one or more of the curriculum subjects listed in the Common Core, Next Generation Science, and California Content Standards. They can be searched by grade, subject, curriculum standard, and keyword here: http://www.raftbayarea.org/ideas-and-activities
About Resource Area for Teaching
RAFT believes the best way to spark the love of learning for the next generation of thinkers, innovators, problem-solvers, and creators, is through hands-on learning. A nonprofit organization since 1994, RAFT serves 11,000 educators each year who teach over 800,000 students. Find out more about RAFT and how to get involved at http://www.raft.729solutions.com.