Lake Cities Education Foundation is thrilled to announce our CoServ STEM Grant recipient, Lake Dallas Elementary School. Led by Katie Landaverde, the $4,000 grant will be used to fund an outdoor science classroom for students.

To be launched in the fall of 2018, students will be designing and building a school garden in Lake Dallas Elementary’s playground area. Creating enriching learning opportunities in the outdoors, the garden will serve as an outdoor science classroom. Focused on facilitating hands-on learning, the garden will pave a unique path to student engagement in the sciences. The garden will further benefit elementary-aged students by fostering experiential learning and promoting interpersonal relationships among students as they are inspired to think creatively and work together.

This inclusive undertaking will involve students of every grade level, which each grade and department managing their own plot of land. Their level of involvement in the garden will appropriately meet grade-appropriate Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) state standards. The outdoor science garden offers a chance to provide instruction differentiated to meet the specific needs of individual students.

Other programs such as Parent Ed, GT, STEM Club, and Rather Project workshops will also be invited to participate in the creation of the garden, which will simultaneously present opportunities to boost community and parent involvement. Apart from teacher-led direction instruction, students will also be encouraged to explore and manipulate physical materials. A key underlying objective of the CoServ grant recipient is to actively tackle the existing science achievement gap through this unique program. The hands-on methodology behind this project will be especially beneficial for students who are tactile or kinesthetic learners.

We are thrilled to be supporting such an impactful project as we continue to fund grants and scholarships for Lake Dallas Independent School District students and teachers.