News Detail

Students Receive Grants for Spring Service-Learning Projects

02/15/2011

At the end of the fall semester, five students received good news. The grant applications they submitted for their spring service-learning courses were approved, and they would be receiving the requested funds to make their projects come alive.

Alexa Ward, Cherie Ward, and Ally Marciano needed funds for a project in their American Cultural Institutions class, taught by Dr. Jim Wood. The class is partnering with East High School and Rochester After-School Academy (RASA), and hopes to increase participation in the existing after-school program. Fisher's service-learning students will be using the funds to purchase a variety of sports equipment for the program, to help participants focus on social, recreational, and character-building aspects of the program. The grant provided them with a total of $200 for the project.

Jillian Gregory and Lindsay Rambert were enrolled in Advanced Professional Writing, where they learned grant-writing skills as part of their coursework. They wrote this mini-grant application as an extension of some work that the class had already done with The Cobblestone School.

Cobblestone had incorporated organic gardening into their curriculum, but that project also came with expenses. Their students needed a new garden cart and supplies, including gardening gloves, mini-spades, shovels, rakes, mulch, and organic seeds.

As part of the science unit, students plant pizza gardens, where they learn about soil composition, environmental toxins, organic soil amendment, and pest control. The pizza is then made in a combined chemistry and math class, where the students learn about units of measurement and fractions, and carbon dioxides. The grant awarded Cobblestone $600 to put towards the organic gardening curriculum.

With the projects are in progress this semester, both grants are currently paying off.

Fisher students who worked on the grant for The Cobblestone School.