Recipients
Spark Grant Recipients
Fall 2011
Chris Dover – Karlina Popwell
Morning Star Elementary School $1720
Cardio & Strength Training for Learning Enhancement (CSTLE)
CSTLE is a structured program designed to significantly enhance learning through optimizing brain function in strategic and intensive students. Chris Dover and MSU Health Enhancement students will teach a unique fitness program which will facilitate students' ability to focus, comprehend, and ultimately perform academically.
Katie Barrett
Chief Joseph Middle School
Help Struggling Readers Enjoy Reading $249
This project will give reluctant readers a reason to read! Give middle school readers the power of choice! The classroom library will give them high interest book choices at their ability level.
Wendy Pierce
Chief Joseph Middle School
8th grade Capstone Project $3000 Butte, Montana is not only the richest hill on the earth, but a city rich in history, culture and social perspectives. Chief Joseph Middle School’s 8th grade students will develop a capstone project that investigates Butte as a microcosm of American and Montanan culture. This project will culminate with a field trip to Butte and publication of a brochure about Butte and its history.
Joni McCann
Bozeman High School
Always A Card $1000
Always a Card supports our special education students’ needs for genuine work experience. Students will create greeting cards, bulletin board décor, and a variety of other products for district personnel. The project will provide students opportunities to practice marketable vocational skills in a business type environment.
Barbara Muller
Emily Dickinson
KINDLE the Love of Reading $1500 When you combine electronic gadgetry with reading you've created a win-win situation for struggling readers. Kindles bring to books the technological features of choice and interaction. Students can manipulate the font and text size, instantly check vocabulary, and choose to listen to the story.
Katy Paynich
Bozeman High School $350
National Council of Teachers of English National Convention in Chicago
Katy Paynich, English teacher at Bozeman High School, attended the 101st Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in Chicago, IL. The theme for this year’s Convention was “Reading the Past, Writing the Future.”
Janice Benham
Bridger/BHS
Bridger Sustainable Water and Agriculture Project $1000
In a world where the human population is burgeoning and the finite nature of available resources is being recognized, the concept of water studies and sustainable agriculture has become important. For Bridger, this issue offers a wide range of cross-curricular possibilities including a cumulative project to meet their curriculum requirements.
Brian Brown
Project Drinking Horse
Hyalite Elementary School $2965
In Project Drinking Horse, students will closely observe, discuss, and record information about a local trail’s ecosystem. Connecting to this trail by watching it change throughout the year will stimulate students’ deeper understanding of their local environment, as well as an investment in its future.
Laura St. John
Bozeman School District (K – 12)
Olweus Bullying Prevention Program $3000
OBPP is widely recognized as a model school based program for violence prevention. The program is designed for all students through preventive AND responsive approaches focusing on changing the norms (bullying is not supported by bystanders). OBPP includes a school, classroom, individual, community, and parent component thereby creating a sustainable system school wide.
Kevin Guettler
Sacajawea Middle School $3000
Let’s BLoSSom Together (STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Project)
Nothing short of the planet’s long term survival depends on the engineering skills of today’s students. This Project is designed to improve the application of proportional reasoning skills learned in one arena to additional areas of study through a collaborative lesson study environment, with coaching and mentoring by MSU faculty.
Alison Feddes
Hawthorne School
Unlimited Potential $1794
Hawthorne Learning Lab filled with 21st century learner’s goes digital. Students K-5 learn to operate and utilize iPods to practice various skills, as well as, compose, construct, create, design, problem solve, and experiment.
Rachel Marker
Hawthorne School $750 Discovering Place: A Collaborative Project between Montana and Vermont Students
How are 4th graders in Montana similar or different to 3rd and 4th graders in Vermont? Through yearlong writing, art and technology projects, students at Hawthorne Elementary explore aspects of their lives as Montanans and share them with students in Bristol, Vermont.
Mark Meredith
Bozeman High School
Electronic Medical Records System for the Sports Medicine Program $750
No more medical records the old-fashioned way! An electronic medical records system utilizing an iPad and electronic medical record sports software will provide a consistent, efficient, transportable method for recording what we do day-to-day, sport-to-sport at any level and will be accessible to all participants
Nancy Hatfield
Hyalite Elementary School Library
iPad – based Interactive Whiteboard System $800
Nancy Hatfield will be using an iPad-based interactive whiteboard system in the Hyalite library. Doceri software located on the teacher's computer wirelessly connects with the teacher's iPad, allowing movement around the room and more interaction with students during instruction.
Stacy Ziegler
Whittier Elementary
Making Tracks to Collagraph!! $1000
Whittier Elementary students will collaborate with the ArtSplot Studio to create unique and rich collagraphs – a printmaking process that incorporates organic materials like leaves and strings enhanced with color onto paperboard.
Spark Grant Recipients
Past Recipients
Fall 2008
Spring 2007
Fall 2007
Spring 2006
Fall 2006
