2022-23 Seed Grant Awards

Holy Spirit Regional Catholic School (Madison County, Alabama)
Mrs. Lynn K. McQueen
Don't Let Bad Weather Spoil Our Fun, Let's Rely on Our Water and Sun!
Over the past year students at our school have been studying local weather forecasting and the effects Alabama weather has on our environment. Now that they have a better understanding of our weather, they want to dive deeper. Our students want to learn more about how Solar and Hydro Energy can play a role in keeping our communities powered. The plan is to build a functioning model Solar/Hydro City. Students will design the city, build it out of Legos, and convert AC power from solar & hydro power. The hydro system will be used to sustain the flowing river within the city.

Mill Creek Elementary School (Madison County, Alabama)
Ms. Jackie Smith
Engineering Design Process: Lab 7
Engineering Design Lab 7 is an ongoing effort to create STEM Lab curriculum that correlates to the Next Generation Science Standards. It will provide students with a variety of hands-on, engineering based projects that will challenge them to utilize critical and analytical thinking skills. 3rd-5th grade students will work collaboratively to design, construct, and test weather balloons, CO2 metric dragsters, and drones. They will use Sphero Bolts to develop coding skills. These activities will foster the concept of teamwork and strengthen student understanding of the engineering design proces

New Hope High School (Madison County, Alabama)
Mrs. Rachel Evans
Level Up with Choice-based STEAM Labs
New Hope High School partnered with FUSE Studio during the 2021-22 school year to provide hands-on, STEAM learning opportunities for our 7-9 grade students. Throughout this year, the students have learned how to code, how to build a plane, how to use CAD to build a structure like an architect, and how gravity effects downward movement such as roller coasters. The students were more engaged in the hands-on FUSE Studio labs than they have ever been. We had enough funding for one school year, and that will end in May 2022. This grant would help us pay for half of the FUSE Studio costs.

Lincoln County High School (Lincoln County, Tennessee)
Ms. Mary E LeBlanc (Marty)
Lincoln County Schools Robotics After School Program
Students need the ability to create, design, innovate, and think critically in order to solve complex challenges. Every student should possess deep knowledge and strong skills in math, science, technology, and engineering"and should be excited and ready to use that knowledge in the real world. To meet this challenge, we need to provide students with new tools and techniques that enable them to learn and then practice the knowledge they have acquired. A number of robotics kit platforms are available to schools and have introduced students to math, science, and engineering at all grade levels.

Limestone County Career Technical Center (Limestone County, Alabama)
Ms. Monica Hobson
Team 34 - Rocket Robotics - Limestone County
Team 34 participates in the FIRST FRC competition. It is a program that teaches students the principles of engineering and how to work as a team. In a short amount of time, students must work together and design and program a fully functioning robot to compete in the game for that year. It is designed to promote interests in careers in STEM fields. The competitions are opportunities to work with teams from all over the country to achieve their goals. It allows them the chance to learn how to work as a team with strangers.

Madison County Virtual Academy (Madison County, Alabama)
Ms. Whitney Evans
First LEGO League Challenge Robotics Team
The Madison County Virtual Academy set course for its maiden voyage in creating a Robotics team last year. Students in 4th-6th grades learned to build and program robots using the FIRST LEGO League resorces. The robotics team worked together to solve a real-world based challenge using the scientific method, STEM skills, and a LEGO SPIKE Prime Robot Kit. Students also learned robotics and engineering basics as well as strengthened their leadership and collaboration skills. For the 2022-2023 year, we plan to extend the skills the students have learned and compete in our first competition.

Moores Mill Intermediate School (Madison County, Alabama)
Mr. Daniel Evans
Inspire innovation in young people through the immersive experience of designing, building, and racing electric-powered vehicles
Greenpower USA is an organization that our school has partnered with over the past six years. The goal of the Greenpower USA Foundation is to advance the understanding of STEM topics and inspire innovation in young people through the immersive experience of designing, building, and racing electric-powered vehicles. We have had this program for several years, but since COVID occured, we have not gotten back into building our car and competing. I would like to be able to offer every student in my building the opportunity to join the Greenpower team and learn more about STEM topics.

Huntsville City Schools - Gifted and Talented Department (Madison County, Alabama)
Mrs. Danielle Paseur
Mobile MAKERSPACE (STEM in Motion)
Huntsville City GATE department is working to create mobile STEM Makerspace labs as a component to meet hands on curriculum opportunities in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Through curiosity and exploration the Makerspace mobile labs will foster creativity and innovation with engineering concepts to all students involved. During the implementation of the labs students will utilize the materials and standards aligned curriculum idea task cards to spark their curiosity and create the mindset and goal to become the innovators and inventors of tomorrow.

Ralph Askins Elementary (Lincoln County, Tennessee)
Mrs. Shana Smith
Little Tigers STEM Lab
Ralph Askins is implementing a Little Tigers STEM lab for all 540 little Tigers. A STEM facilitator will create weekly lessons to support classroom learning. The little Tigers will experience at least one unique STEM activity per month. The STEM lab facilitator will plan, develop, and create STEM activities to collaborate with the classroom curriculum. The first project to be introduced in the Little Tigers STEM lab will be to build robots and program them using basic coding language. The Little Tigers Stem lab will develop and build on the natural curiosity of elementary students.

Owens Cross Roads School (Madison County, Alabama)
Mrs. Grace Bender
Greenpower USA: Project-based Learning Experience and STEM Education
Greenpower USA is a STEM program that allows students to build electric cars run by batteries and compete in races against other students around the country. Our Greenpower team will race in multiple events throughout the year. The team uses the races to make improvements to the car so that they can continue to be competitive in the upcoming races. They will learn many STEM-related skills.

Julian Newman Elementary (Limestone County, Alabama)
Mrs. Diane Trout
Launching the future
Launching the future will put robotics in the hands of early elementary students in Athens, AL. Force and motion is a standard across all grade levels and the robotics obtained will allow students to explore concepts on a level other than simply pushing a ball down a ramp. Students will have opportunities to work across grade levels to collaborate and mentor younger students in the programming of the robots and the concepts of force and motion.

Seed Grants for Previous Years

The following documents provide abstracts for the Seed Grant proposals that have been funded over the past several years.

YouTube Channel
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About Proposals Grants Donors Committee Contacts Search