Cognex Honor Grant
Digital Portfolio: Capturing the Classroom, Entering College, Training in a Marketable Medium
Stephen Miller, Director of Fine and Performing Arts, Natick High School
The primary objective of this grant is to provide student artists an experience of capturing and creating work in the digital medium so that they are prepared to pursue an education involving visual arts. More colleges are requiring digital submission of artistic work. The funds will purchase two high-end digital cameras, tripods, an EZ box light display case, and other camera equipment to be used by high school art students.

Erica (“Ricky”) and Jay Ball Honor Grant
Navigating Cultural Diversity Curriculum Project
Anna Nolin, Principal Wilson Middle School and Rosemary Vickery, Principal Kennedy Middle School
In collaboration with the Facing History and Ourselves teacher training and curriculum, the 7th grade geography and English language arts teachers at both middle schools will develop and deliver lessons connected to literature, history and social studies/geography to teach students the importance of understanding and sensitively managing the increasingly diverse schools, workplaces and country. Facing History’s work is based on the premise that educators must teach civic responsibility, tolerance, and social action to young people, as a way of fostering moral adulthood.

Nellie Mae Education Foundation Honor Grant
Wilson School Store and Philanthropy Board
Anna Nolin, Principal Wilson Middle School
This grant will provide funding to create a school store and philanthropy board at the Wilson Middle School. The project will include education for participating students in money management and business planning; use of appropriate supporting computer software; and research and analysis of both business trends and worthy charities who will receive profits from the store sales.

Baldwin-Reyering Honor Grant
Orange Sky Meditation and Relaxation” Camille Napier-Bernstein NHS
Camille Napier-Bernstein, Natick High School
This grant will fund the creation of a meditation group for high school students which will offer students instruction and practice in stress reduction and prevention techniques. Focusing on meditation, breathing, and visualization techniques, Ms. Napier-Bernstein will run a weekly after-school meditation group to help students cope with the frenetic demands of their academic and social lives while increasing their attention, focus, and overall well-being. Grant funds will pay for mats, eye pillows, mat cleaner, music and books.

Electricity and Communication Systems
Margaux Parino, Alternative Education, Natick High School
This grant is designed to provide alternative education students with the opportunity to explore how electrical engineers design systems. Students will use Snap circuit kits to build and design projects such as a scoreboard and fan control system. The project has over 25 experiences that students can engage in after completing the electrical engineering challenges.

Video Scope
Kathi Browne, Natick High School
This grant will be used to purchase a video scope, which is a camera attached to a microscope or focused on some small area of work. Samples or demonstrations that would be observed by only one student can be projected onto a screen or monitor allowing the whole class to make observations.

Water, Water Everywhere: A Study of Oceans
Kathi Browne and Kindergarten teachers, all Kindergartens
This grant will fund the purchase of equipment and supplies for a hands-on study of oceans as part of the kindergarten science curriculum. Materials include sand, shells, magnifying glasses and inflatable globes.

Science Club
Kathi Browne, Natick High School
This grant will provide materials for practice experiments and registration fees for the NHS Science Club to enter the Regional Science Bowl and Women in Science competitions.

The Oceans and Matter
Kathi Browne and Kindergarten teachers, all Kindergartens
This grant will fund non-fiction readers for use in the kindergarten classes as part of the Oceans and Matter curriculum unit.

NHS Robotics Club
Seth Foster, Co-Captain RoboNatick, NHS
This grant is to help fund the NHS Robotics team's participation in the FIRST Robotics Challenge international robotics competition. The FIRST competition provides students with hands-on experience in engineering and opportunities to understand and implement real-world project management.

Classroom Aquariums
Laura Muller, Kim Marzullo, Ben-Hem
This grant will provide for the installation of 20-gallon salt water, marine life tanks in two kindergarten classrooms for one month. The children will learn about a variety of ocean animals including echinoderms, crustaceans, mollusks and fish. Teachers will receive a comprehensive curriculum guide containing lesson plans, activities and fact sheets.

Virtual Dissection
Margaux Parino, Alternative Education, Natick High School
The grant will fund virtual dissection software and videos. Students will also complete a bull frog and forensic pig dissection, modeling the protocols used by pathologists in human autopsies. Disabled students will engage in small hands-on dissection experiences as well as experiences seen through virtual dissection and dvds.

Video Game Design
Marjorie Roberson, Natick High School
This grant will purchase five copies of video game design software, installable on ten computers. Video game design is a complicated process that includes writing, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, physics, psychology and mathematics.

The Sounds of Reading: An Audio Resource Center
Amy Bloom, Wilson Middle School
This grant will be used to create an Audio Center for teachers and students at Wilson Middle School. The grant will purchase equipment - MP3 players, CD players, speakers and boom boxes - and materials - CDs, audio books, tapes and corresponding books for students who would benefit from auditory support.

Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs
Tracy Militello, Wilson Middle School
This grant will fund the purchase of 20 different Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs in a variety of topic to enhance current content units and provide science MCAS review for 5th graders at Wilson Middle School.

Outdoor Classroom
Amy Bruns, Johnson Elementary School
This grant will fund the creation of an edible garden with the Native American "Three Sisters" theme. The mixed perennial and shrub garden will be beneficial to birds and butterflies and will contain bird and bat houses.

Digital Microscope
Ellen Brenneman, Kennedy Middle School
This grant will purchase a digital microscope which provides the ability to project a slide, allowing the teacher to model what to look for to the class as a whole before the students attempt the process on their own.

Odyssey of the MInd
Ellen Brenneman, Kennedy Middle School
This grant will help fund an “Odyssey of the Mind” after school club, in which teams of three to seven students select a problem and then present their solution either to their peers or at the regional competition. For students in grades 5-8.

Museum of Science Travel Programs
Paul Power, Kennedy Middle School
This grant will fund two traveling programs from the Boston Museum of Science: “Cryogenics: Heat and Temperature” and “Motion: Speed, Velocity & Acceleration.” For students in grades 7-8.

Chemistry is Colorful
Kathi Browne, Natick High School
This grant will purchase colorimeter probes which will allow students to perform a variety of experiments using solutions which contain molecules or ions with a color.

Waterwise
Chemistry department, Natick High School
This grant will fund a project involving water quality. Students will apply chemical concepts such as pH, bonding and solution chemistry to analyze water samples of their choice. Students will present their findings in a manner similar to what scientists do: a poster session.

Speed of Sound
Kathi Browne, Natick High School
This grant will fund equipment that will allow students to measure the speed of sound using walkie-talkies, timers and a GPS device.

Solution Chemistry
Kathi Browne, Natick High School
This grant will purchase pH and conductivity probes, allowing students to study properties of solutions in greater depth and to perform additional laboratory experiments.

Physics is Electric
Kathi Browne, Natick High School
This grant will fund voltage and current probes which will allow students to perform a variety of experiments related to their study of electricity and, more specifically, the study of series circuits, parallel circuits, and Ohm’s Law.