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Area Teachers Plan Use Grants To Educate In Unconventional Ways

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The Foundation for Appalachian Ohio announced seven Athens County teachers as recipients of the Walmart Foundation Strive for Excellence Mini-Grants Initiative.

FAO partnered with the Walmart Foundation to support education in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine, and fund projects and programs proposed by area teachers.

Nelsonville York Elementary Teacher Tina McWilliams says she will use her mini-grant to develop an interactive method of education.

"This will give me the opportunity to use technology in a different way to reach learners on a different level. With approaching education, we don't necessarily have students that are learning in paper, pencil, textbooks, reading their books and answering questions. We need a higher level of thinking for these students and this will give me the opportunity to work with them in a different aspect," says McWilliams.

The Plains Elementary School Sixth Grade teacher Miranda Hodgson will use her mini-grant to fund an onsite field trip that will involve building motorized Lego racecars.

Hodgson says the activities funded by the mini-grants will help improve standardized testing scores in an unconventional way.

"It goes along with all of our standards that we're working on and it's a different way to approach the standards," says Hodgson.

The mini-grant recipients also include Joni Carpinelli, Josie Stricklin and Tess Addis of Nelsonville York Elementary School, Kevin Dael of Alexander High School and Elizabeth Swatzel of Morrison Elementary School.