The Golden Eagle Education Foundation is a non-profit coalition of residents dedicated to enriching the educational experience of local students. This fall, the GEEF provided several grants to do exactly that.

GEEF’s Classroom Funding Project supports creative and innovative classroom projects and teaching techniques.

Several grants were recently awarded to McDowell Mountain Elementary School.

The first grant was awarded to K-3rd grade technology classes for Think and Learn Code-A-Pillars. This learning tool encourages experimentation while developing important skills such as problem solving, planning and sequencing, and critical thinking. It will be highly motivating and an engaging way to introduce the basics of computer coding, according to GEEF representatives. Students will put together the programing pieces to get the Code-A-Pillar to move to a set goal. Students can also change and rearrange their segments to take the Code-A-Pillar on a different path.

A grant was also awarded to a kindergarten class for simple machine kits. These kits will allow students to experience and build engineering tools relating to their classroom science lessons. Students work with pulleys, levers, gears, wheels and axles while exploring energy, buoyancy and balance.

Finally, a grant was awarded to Four Peaks Elementary School fourth grade classes for individual math kits containing parts which can be manipulated to help understand and visualize fractions and, eventually, decimals. Such manipulative tools provide a multisensory way for students to explore equivalencies and practice adding, subtracting and comparing fractions.