The Lawrence Township Education Foundation (LTEF) handed over a check for $34,502 to the Lawrence Township Public Schools Board of Education to support STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education efforts in the public school district.
LTEF Executive Director Bonnie Giglio gave the check to the school board at its July 10 meeting. The Bristol Myers-Squibb (BMS) Corporation funded the grant to the LTEF, which in turn handed it over to the school district.
“Every year, the LTEF works with supervisors from the Lawrence Township Public Schools to assess the needs of the district in the area of STEAM education, and applies for funding from BMS,” Giglio said.
“We are so excited to have received positive feedback on our requests and an increase in funding this year.”
Historically, STEAM education has been underfunded, which has limited access and opportunities for many students, she said. This is despite its importance to provide students with the skills they need for jobs in the future, and the ability to develop problem-solving skills.
The grant earmarks $26,503 for 80 Harkness-style dry erase tables for Lawrence High School math classrooms to encourage discussion, collaboration and visible thinking by allowing students to jot down their thoughts on the whiteboards, she said.
A Harkness table is an oval table. Students and their teacher sit around the table and discuss the content they are learning. It encourages interaction between the students themselves and also between them and the teacher.
The grant also allocates $7,999 for a Maker Space Cart for the Lawrence Intermediate School (LIS), Giglio said. The cart has more than 17,000 components, such as screws, nuts, wire cutters, hammers, soldering irons, gears, pulleys, motors and wires that students in grades 4-6 can use for projects.
The cart provides opportunities for the students to generate creative ideas and to strengthen their STEAM knowledge, she said. They may use the materials to create low-tech and high-tech projects that explore topics such as energy, transportation, communication, coding and eco-literacy.
BMS had previously provided money to create four Maker Space carts at the Ben Franklin, Eldridge Park, Lawrenceville and Slackwood elementary schools.
“These carts were such a huge success that LIS asked for its own cart,” Giglio said. “The LTEF is proud to be able to bring additional funding from BMS to purchase LIS its own cart.”
The LTEF raises money from individuals, local businesses, corporations and foundations for grants to teachers. It has approved more than 1,100 grants, totaling more than $4.6 million, since its inception in 1992.
