Xenia Daily Gazette
BELLBROOK — Bellbrook Middle School teacher Cathy St. Pierre has been selected to receive a 2016 McDonald’s Make Activities Count (MAC) Grant for the seventh consecutive year.
With the $495.70, St. Pierre will fund a variety of activities to support student learning. The MAC grant will be used to provide hands-on inquiry STEM activities for her seventh grade science classes as students investigate cycles, electricity, energy and scientific method. Rather than simply researching and note taking, her goal is to provide activities for the students.
“I am very excited this year to utilize the Make Activities Count Grant to purchase these materials,” she said. “Excellence in education and learning is fostered through meaningful activities to support curricular content. With the support of the MAC Grants program, an initiative sponsored by local McDonald’s owner/operators, each of these activities will help Make Activities Count for my seventh grade students at Bellbrook Middle School and I am deeply appreciative.”
Part of the grant monies will be used to purchase eight digital thermometers, three digital electronic gram scales, and 19 goose neck lamps that will be used for lab investigations in the energy efficiency investigations and the scientific method lab activities. A key science standard is energy conservation and transfer. These lab activities will allow students to “think green” as they learn about environmentally friendly energy sources and choices.
The grant also includes the funding for live butterfly cultures, which enable students to watch caterpillars change into painted lady butterflies in the classroom’s butterfly garden. Students see the transition as the larvae mature, change into a chrysalis, and finally emerge as butterflies, while students study the life cycle. The butterflies are then released into the school flower garden.
The MAC grant will also cover the classroom participation fee for chicken embryology: chick quest 4-H. Participation in this program allows students to care for the developing chick embryos and learn about their stages of development.
MAC Grant program coordinator Suzanne Wehrly said the committee of educators, business professionals, and McDonald’s representatives found the Bellbrook application be among the “cream of the crop.”
The check presentation will be 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7, at the Ray and Joan Kroc Center on North Keowee Street in Dayton.
