Think Big, Design Bigger: Imaginative Innovation

With the world developing so quickly, the children of our society's future need to be able to develop just as quick, so they can succeed! And this is what all teachers, especially Ida Jurkowski from Terrell Elementary School, want for their students! With her LEAF-funded grant, Think Big, Design Bigger: Imaginative Innovation, Mrs. Jurkowski was able to help her students do exactly this!

Innovation in Action

Thanks to the LEAF-funded grant, Mrs. Jurkowski was able to give almost 700 PK-5th grade students the exact tools they needed to be able to think big and design even bigger by participating in several mentally-engaging activities! She was able to cater to all of their diverse learning needs by setting interdisciplinary maker challenges aligned with their grade-level standards, and learning types.

From a Chomp Saw and Montessori blocks, to a mini 3D printer, and button cutter, and so much more, the students got access to all kinds of tools!

The Innovation and Design Lab included several high- and low-tech materials, engineering and construction activities, coding and robotics tools, a 3D printer for digital design, and creative expression resources, again, catering to all sorts of learning! She understood the importance of students developing a diverse set of skills early on and helped them foster creativity by taking charge of their creations, participate in collaborative learning by setting up group-based challenges, develop a problem-solving mindset by having students prototype, test, and iterate solutions, and overall increase their engagement!

The Impact

Getting students excited for and engaged in their learning can be difficult sometimes, but Mrs. Jurkowski was able to overcome this challenge! By targeting grade-level standards in math, science, art, literacy, and technology, the students were equipped with a useful set of skills, along with the social-emotional development they needed to keep and effectively utilize this set of skills in their day-to-day learning!

The impact was undeniable. It could be seen across all of the students and their learning, proving the extreme vitality of grant-funded tools and resources!

A special thank you to our donor community for making grants like this possible!  If you would like to invest in public education and support our mission, please email our office at leaf@lcisd.org.