Learning Aboard the Magic School Bus

Learning Aboard the Magic School Bus

Apr 1, 2013

GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM: This is what $80,000 can do for a school. Thanks to a grant from the Grable Foundation, Shaler Area Elementary School, located outside of Pittsburgh, partnered with Dream Flight Adventures to design a futuristic classroom that more closely resembles NASA mission control. Code-named the IKS Titan, the "magic school bus," as it's been described, supports up to 16 students who collaborate projects on iPads. Dream Flight Adventures Director, Gary Gardiner, has been working with a Shaler Elementary teacher on designing missions that tackle both STEM and humanities--from battling diseases to traveling back in history to save folks onboard the Lusitania. The crew just took off on its maiden voyage on March 20. We await to hear its (learning) results and findings!

One might argue, of course, that $80K could be spent to address more serious classroom needs, but this only goes to show how local and regional foundations can be quite proactive in funding some pretty ambitious projects.

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