Grants enrich seeds of learning at McNeal Elementary

Andrea Berninger, a science teacher who runs the garden club at Gilbert W. McNeal Elementary, thought she finally had gotten rid of the birds plaguing her gardens.

Then she found herself applying for a grant to get them back.

Berninger combined with art teacher Beatrix Schaeffer and engineering teacher Denise Touchberry to apply for the grant from the Manatee Education Foundation. Touchberry’s Technology Student Association group had a goal of building 30 birdhouses, and the art club wanted to decorate them.

The final effect, hopefully, is to create more colorful gardens at the school.

“Depending upon what she plants, I thought the birdhouses could be a good thing because birds spread seeds and help plant things,” Touchberry said.

“As long as the birds don’t eat everything,” Berninger said.

A year ago, birds and rabbits ravaged the gardens.

“The crows ate all of our strawberries,” Berninger said. “And we don’t know for sure, but we think the rabbits ate all of our cabbage.”

Touchberry said her students are researching a way to attract certain birds that won’t destroy the gardens while keeping the crows away.

The Manatee Education Foundation loved the project and decided to give a $1,000 grant to the three teachers. That was just one of 45 grants ($108,000 combined) awarded during the foundation’s 2017 Teacher Impact Grant Reception on Oct. 26 at Renaissance on 9th in Bradenton.

Mary Glass, president of the Manatee Education Foundation, applauded the creativity of this year’s grant recipients.

Berninger said the foundation makes innovating lessons possible.

“We received the same grant last year, and we wouldn’t have been able to do the garden club without it,” Berninger said. “The amount of soil we went through, the earth boxes, it was all pretty expensive.”

Other East County schools and teachers were just as fortunate.

McNeal Elementary third-grade teacher Carolyn Wingnet will use her $1,000 grant to expand virtual reality lessons.

“We can guide students through little virtual reality field trips using headsets,” Wingnet said. “If teachers are studying a geographic location, YouTube has lots of 360 videos for Google Expeditions. Through discovery applications, you can take kids to places that you physically can’t go because it is too far away. It gives every student access to an immersive experience and gets them excited about new technology.”

Kaden Oda, a third-grader in Wingnet’s class, already has built a K’NEX roller coaster with classmate Michael Geaglone.

“It was pretty cool,” Oda said. “I was sitting on a roller coaster cart and it was like I was going upside down and doing cork screws everywhere. You kind of feel the motion the whole time. It actually made me a little dizzy.”

Wingnet wants to be proactive in immersing new technology into the classroom.

“These are strategies in terms of how to get kids using technology in an effective way,” Wingnet said, “rather than technology just being a novelty.”