Collaborative Grant Project: Participants Needed

Participants Needed For Touch Tanks For Kids Grant Project

Encourages Participation

Thanks to a Grant from Gannet Charitable Foundation, Touch Tanks for Kids has expanded our valuable environmental learning program to three school communities: Freeport Elementary School, Freeport, Maine, Berlin High School, Berlin, New York, and Tuscaloosa County High, Northport, Alabama.

The Touch Tank Teaching Program is an innovative interactive approach to learning that encourages students to respect the environment as they learn about and care for a wide variety of sea animals.

Jean Giberson, an elementary school teacher from West Harpswell Island School on the coast of Maine, designed the original Touch Tank. She wanted more of her students to be engaged in the learning process and understood that by bringing an exciting hands-on learning experience into her classroom, she would reach more students and improve her ability to teach science, environmental stewardship and other related subjects.

Jean’s vision energized her students, created a better learning environment and inspired the creation of Touch Tanks for Kids, a 501 c 3 environmental nonprofit committed to helping more students enjoy the benefits of the interactive lesson of the Touch Tank.

When asked about the Touch Tank Teaching Program, Ms. Giberson said, “The Touch Tank has been one of the best educational tools I have ever had. If people saw what this tank did and how it inspires the students, there would be no question about funding it. The students might forget me in ten years, but not the tank.”

The Lobsters Like Grants

Thanks to Jean Giberson, the Touch Tank Teaching Program is now used in many locations with educators reporting that a Touch Tank  in the classroom supports all aspects of education, encourages participation, improves learning results, and energizes children to learn.

Believing that building relationships is a main component needed for the long term sustainability of the planet, Touch Tanks for Kids collaborates with like organizations, students, teachers and community members to build better ways to teach students. We work toward our long term strategic goals of advancing marine science education, improving waste management practices and providing long term economic opportunities by creating new and exciting ways to learn about the natural world.

With the generous contribution from the Gannet Charitable Foundation, Touch Tanks for Kids has equipping three professional educators and their students with the world-class Touch Tank Teaching Program. The educators will be provided with everything needed to adapt the valuable teaching program to the needs of their students. They will also be asked to participate in a sea-life propagation study, a study that will help future Touch Tank Teaching Program participants maintain more vibrant educational ecosystems.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the Touch Tanks for Kids Program. We are seeking educational programs to participate in a collaborative grant writing effort to unlock more funding to expand Jean’s teaching vision to more students. Participants will only be asked to identify possible grant funding sources and to answer objective and subjective questions about the ways the Touch Tank Teaching Program can improve education, advance marine science studies, improve waste management practices and provide long term economic opportunities for the students who participate in the program. Touch Tanks for Kids will share the teachers’ evaluations and suggestions for improvements to the Touch Tank Teaching Program with our interconnected teaching network.

APPLY NOW USING FORM BELOW