Mrs. Cathie Poulin and Dr. Lori Rose respectively received a portion of a large grant from ATMC. Many teachers across Columbus and Brunswick County received different amounts of grants to help their classrooms. 

Mrs. Poulin applied for the grant with the help of Mrs. G and was actually quite surprised when receiving it. Poulin has received grants before, but it has been a while since she last received one. She forgot all the excitement that comes with it. 

“I first applied for the grant by going to Mrs.G and asking her for help; she filled out some paperwork, sent it to me, I added some more math specific things then she sent it off,” said Poulin. “I was so psyched, I’ve won a grant before but it had been years because I haven’t had time to write one.” 

Poulin noticed it has become difficult to help all of her students when several of them needed help and she couldn’t be at multiple places at once. So with the grant money, Poulin hopes to bring electronic whiteboards for her students to use in her classroom. 

“As a math teacher, my problem is there’s one of me and there are 25+ students,” said Poulin. “So this grant is for an electronic whiteboard so that students can write on the computer screen, it will show up on my screen so I can see everyone’s written all at once and I can write on their board from my board.”

Poulin is very thrilled about the new additions coming to her classroom and hopes that this will make a huge difference for the better on students’ learning and her ability to communicate with them. Poulin’s goal is to be able to multitask between students and view their work to better understand not only their mistakes but how she can help them differently.

“It increases my ability to affect everybody,” said Poulin. “I just feel like I’ll have a lot more student productivity and understanding.”

Dr. Lori Rose applied for the grant the same way Mrs. Poulin did, with the help of Mrs G. Both Mrs. Poulin and Dr. Rose applied for the same educational grant money but Rose has a different plan for the use of the grant. Rose hopes to use this grant as a portion of the cost for the anatomy and clay program. 

“I have to give Mrs.G the credit, I gave her the information but she actually wrote the grant,” said Rose. “The money will fund the program for anatomy and clay, similar to the PLTW class.”

Rose was just as surprised as Poulin when finding out she was one of many winners. It was very unexpected considering she didn’t know who or what her competition was. 

“I had no idea we would win,” said Rose. “You don’t know how many people apply so you don’t know what your competition is.”

The grant money given to Rose will only cover a portion of the total cost needed to fund the program. Rose applied for the grant knowing she will need several more to obtain all the materials but this portion gives her a major headstart to increase student productivity. 

“The cost of the program is about $9,000 to get everything you need for more than one class,” said Rose. “I knew that I would need several grants put together to be able to bring the program here so I received a grant last year and applied for another one this year.”

The anatomy and clay program is very costly but it is reusable so it should last a while. The mannequins are used for periodic times which will be the main cost but the clay is reusable. The clay can be shared by students and reused while it is more difficult to share the manikins. 

“It should last quite a while, I’d like to add to it so it lasts longer,” said Rose. “The clay is reusable and occasionally will have to be resupplied but the upfront cost is the manikins because we can reuse those over and over.”

Rose hopes that this hands-on program will help students understand anatomy and physiology better since the course is so complex and takes a lot of visuals to fully comprehend. Rose hopes that through the hands-on program, the information learned will stick with students better than just hearing the information. 

“Anatomy and physiology is just so much information, I think the hands-on opportunity will help,” said Rose. “It will be more beneficial to physically model the model rather than looking at a picture”

Rose is beyond grateful for the grants she receives and she notices the differences made on her students through the costly programs. Without the grants, Rose wouldn’t be able to provide this for her students so she gives thanks to all the grant providers. 

“We’re very grateful for companies who provide money for the grants to schools where we are always looking for money,” said Rose. “It makes a lot of difference to our students.”