2014

Spring 2014 Awards Winners

• First Grade Math Toolkits (Matt Elkin/Robin Taliaferro – Duzine): All students in the first grade and their families will have essential math tools, accompanying activities and instructional videos to practice foundational skills and concepts for building number sense and understanding place value at home.
• Closing the Gap – Families and Students Learning Together (Joanne Dingee/Amanda Rivero – Lenape): This project will advance students’ ability to read unfamiliar words, become nimble word solvers and create confident independent readers. Furthermore, it will enable students to become proficient readers. The instructional strategies embedded in this project will lead students to read fluently and understand complex texts and to integrate fully with peers.

Fall 2014 Awards Winners

• Hands on History (Sarah Sebald – Lenape): History comes to life as New York Historical Society educators lead each 4th class through three historical time periods with interactive programming. Using authentic touch objects, primary images, maps, and documents, students will deepen their understanding of Dutch-controlled New Amsterdam, British-controlled New York, and the American Revolution. The inquiry-driven program will expand vocabulary and develop critical thinking skills, while providing the students an opportunity to grow as historians and learners.
• Engineering Design and Development (Alexis Mallory – High School): Students in this capstone class of the PLTW Curriculum will be granted funding to build a working prototype. Over the course of the project students will develop relationships with engineers, mentors, and personnel from their area of interest, identifying real-world problems and collaborating with one other to apply creative problem-solving skills to find practical solutions. Students will present their prototypes to the school community at the end of the year.
• Classroom in the Field – Phase 3 (Cathy Law – High School): Updates to the “living classroom” will include improving the bird habitat, adding hardy xeriscape perennials and grasses, stone benches, and geologic rock specimens.
• Transitional Planning Fair (Sarah Oles – High School): What do you do when the bus stops coming? NPHS Guidance will organize a fair to connect students with disabilities and their families with available resources to help them transition to life after high school. Open to all of Ulster County, the fair will feature a presentation from bestselling author and motivational speaker Jesse Saperstein, who has an Autistic Spectrum disorder himself. The fair will be a collaborative effort with Pupil Personnel Services and the Ulster County Transitional Corp.

• Speech Sounds for Success (Lara Salveson – Duzine): Two apps will be purchased for use with students with speech articulation needs. Embraced by the speech therapy community, the apps are flexible enough to engage one to six children at a time, allowing the, to work at their own levels toward individual goals. Printable resources will be available for work at home.