Instructify

HASTAC is looking for the sharpest needles on the digital farm, and when they find them, they’ll award them anywhere from $5,000 to $250,000. You’re an Instructify reader; surely you could be one of those talented needles — especially if you’ve got a great Web 2.0 project or idea.

The aforesaid HASTAC (pronounced just like the proverbial bale of dried grass) is actually the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, an initiative funded by the deep-pocketed MacArthur Foundation. The 2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition is giving out two separate kinds of awards: one to teams of people on “larger-scale projects” and the other to individual “innovators aged 18-25.” In both cases, the DML Competition wants to encourage “Participatory Learning,” which from their description doesn’t sound much different from social networking: “Participatory Learning includes the many ways that learners (of any age) use new technologies to participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment upon one another’s projects, and plan, design, advance, implement, or simply discuss their goals and ideas together.”

Examples of winning projects from 2007 include “FollowTheMoney.org”, which helps civics students (and all of us) understand certain legislative activities; the “Black Cloud” Environmental Studies game played by high school students from Los Angeles and Cairo; and “Always With You”, a mobile-phone network that enables micro-funding to young African social activists.

The deadline for this year’s competition is October 15, 2008, so start honing your application-filling-out skills now. –AMANDA FRENCH

2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition

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Grants for energy education projects

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Win gas money for your next educational excursion with Target Field Trip Grants

If there’s a bright side to America’s energy crunch (and that’s a big “if”), it’s that it’s a fine reason to teach about energy. And those lessons might be worth some serious cash. Progress Energy will dish out up to $75,000 for projects dealing with energy education.

Potential topics include solar power, recycling programs, energy audits, a lab excercise about electricity, or whatever plans you can think of that don’t involve a hamster wheel. For more ideas, visit Progress Energy’s blog entry on DonorsChoose.

If you’d like some of this free money, apply by October 15. You’ll need to sign up for a free DonorsChoose.org account. Then, just submit your project ideas, including the tools you’ll need to help your students learn a thing or two about energy. -BILL FERRIS

North & South Carolina Teachers: Progress Energy to fund up to $75,000 in hands-on energy education projects this year!

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Win gas money for your next educational excursion with Target Field Trip Grants

Free money: Toyota Tapestry Grant for Science Teachers

Photo credit: Rob__ on flickr

Have rising gas costs put a stop to field trips at your school? More and more schools are cutting back on field trips to save money. Pity, since you can find so many whiz-bang learning opportunities outside the classroom. If your great field trip ideas are at risk, consider applying for a Target field trip grant. The retail giant will gole out 5,000 grants of up to $800 each this school year.

You can apply online anytime before November 1. You only get one submission, though, so make it count.  “Visit the zoo. Go backstage at a local theater. Tour a museum,” suggests the website. Of course, if you really want to win one of these, you could propose a trip to your local Target retailer. Or a nearby national park, that would probably work, too. -BILL FERRIS

Target Field Trip Grants

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Toyota and the National Science Teachers Association want to give you a bunch of money. All they ask in return is you use it for an awesome project.

If you’re a middle school or high school science teacher, you should apply for a Toyota TAPESTRY Grant, which I assume is an acronym for something. Toyota and the NSTA will award more than half a million bucks to teachers who propose “innovative projects that enhance science education in the school and/or school district.”

The grants will take the form of 50 large grants (as in $10,000), and 20-32 mini grants ($2500). That’s a lot of dollars. More importantly, that’s a lot of projects, which means you’ve got pretty decent odds of winning some money for your classroom. For full details, click here. You’ve got until January 21, 2009 to come up with something, which is plenty of time to make your idea a good one. -BILL FERRIS

Toyota TAPESTRY Grant

Right now, your high school seniors are probably stressing out about the difference between the cost of college and the amount of scholarship money they received. If you’re a guidance counselor or a teacher who doesn’t want your students to have to decide between buying books or food, show them these financial aid options, courtesy of studenthacks.org. They’ll find information about Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, plus lesser-known options like Plus Loans, as well as Social Security for students unlucky enough to have a deceased parent.

This list is a good resource for students scrambling to fund their education. Juniors can also use it as a primer for all the financial aid rigmarole they’ll have to go through next year. By exploring financial aid options, your students will have the money they need for school, and the peace of mind of not worrying how they’ll pay for their next meal. -BILL FERRIS

How to Find More Cash for School – 9 Financial Aid Options via studenthacks.org

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