Caverna Schools to Share in Math, Science Grant

By Gina Kinslow, Glasgow Daily Times, Ky.

Jul. 23–CAVE CITY — Two schools in the Caverna Independent School District have been selected to take part in significant grant awards to help math and science educators teach those subjects to their students.

Caverna Elementary will share $500,000 over a three-year period with 15 other elementary schools in the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative.

GRREC sought the grant in hopes it would help improve math scores of students in the area.

Johna Rodgers, grant writer for GRREC, said the area once performed above the state average in elementary math, but officials began to notice a decrease in elementary math scores.

“As a region, we weren’t doing as well as we had been,” she said.

Rodgers pointed out that while progress in elementary math was still being made and scores were still climbing, they weren’t as strong as they had been.

The money will be used to send four to five teachers who teach kindergarten/first grade, second/third grade, fourth/fifth grade and special education, plus one additional teacher to be trained in a variety of math programs.

“The main focus of the grant is to prepare students for algebra when they get in high school,” said Nathan Wyatt, Caverna Elementary principal. “They will learn how to teach younger students to think algebraically.”

Caverna’s teachers will not only work together in teaching their students, but will also work with other schools sharing the grant, Rodgers said.

“If you can instill very, very early on what math and numbers mean in those children, they will have a lifelong better understanding and be able to make an application to it,” she said.

Caverna Elementary will also receive some math programs to use in addition to its regular mathematics program.

“We are really excited to be involved with the new initiative and are thankful to GRREC for including us,” Wyatt said.

Caverna Middle School also received $500,000 in grant funding through GRREC and will share the money over a three-year period with 12 schools in the area.

The money will be used to not only train teachers how to better engage students in real-world science, but to implement a hands-on, inquiry science project called Ask-It.

“We all know those science teachers who brought it to life for us, but they were few and far between,” said Rodgers. “We are using rigorous curriculum that they can practice with other teachers on how to teach (science).”

Middle school-level science teachers will work with officials with the Barren River Imaginative Museum of Science in Bowling Green to help “the students experience the science rather than just getting it out of the book,” she said.

—–

To see more of the Glasgow Daily Times or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.glasgowdailytimes.com/.

Copyright (c) 2008, Glasgow Daily Times, Ky.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.