Our team received three grants this year. The grants will enable us to create more collaborative teaching/learning environments, develop students' study and stewardship related to the local river and wetlands habitat, and deepen students' knowledge of how and why people past and present impact their world.
Now that we've received the grants, the job is to bring those grants full circle with the following actions:
Fidelity to the Grant Proposal
We need to re-read all that we proposed and make plans to meet each objective.
Related Research
There's more study to do to bring the grants full circle. We have to make sure we're using up-to-date information and process to embed the grant efforts in meaningful, accurate ways.
Tracking, Reflection, and Analysis
We have to keep track of each effort with pictures, descriptions, reflections, and analysis. For example with regard to our naturalist grant we've already completed a number of steps including an expert visitor, head starting wood frogs, and creating study packet one. Next steps include study packet two, an introduction to the field study and the Wild and Scenic River System, two naturalist field studies, the Junior River Ranger badge ceremony, and the final student reflections and culminating news article.
Getting grants is only one part of the overall grant process. After that we have to make sure the grant is embedded with fidelity and good effort so that our intentions translate to good learning and teaching.
