Finding and Developing Mini-Grants
for the Classroom

During our grant searching we found several other resources for both developing and implementing standards-based units of study as well as some links to general grants for teachers. We'd like to highlight a few here.

*** Developmental Standards-Based Units of Study-A Tutorial
by Martin, Gregg is a really useful site. It is developed from a manual developed by Vermont educators and published in How to Use Standards in the Classroom by Doug Harris and Judy Carr and published by ASCD.

*** McREL Content Knowledge Site
is a compendium of standards and benchmarks for K-12 Education. It has a partner Connections+ site which relates Internet unit resources to standards and grade-level benchmarks. Read here to find out how the subject area sections are structured. In a previous weekly website, Leslie also developed a tour of the McREL site you can revisit.

*** Check out this site done by a Mini-Grant recipient team last year at the Douglas School in conjunction with the Franklin Institute: Undersea and Oversee.

*** Proposal Writing (by The Foundation Center Online)
is a short course on proposal writing. The process described is not a formula to be rigidly adhered to -- rather, it is a suggested approach that can be adapted to fit the needs of any nonprofit and the peculiarities of each situation.

*** Writing a Grant
is a quick list of some tips and things to keep in mind when information-gathering and proposal-writing written by Frances Jones, a teacher and writer in Missouri.

And then we have general resources:

Putnam Valley Central Schools. Developmental Educational Standards
is a general directory of standards resources. This includes many organizational webpages with their own support material.

The Grant-Writing Process on the Fund's WWW Focus on Fundraising page.

Many previous Weekly Websites have tied Standards to content and units of study (more to be developed!):

• Bringing Standards to Life (and Life to Standards!)
• Spring into Science! Connecting Standards and Lessons

And if you are looking for a grant, the Fund's WWW Focus on Fundraising may be a good place to start. Here are a few highlights from that site that are available throughout the school year:

Practitioner Research Communication and Mentoring Grants
The Practitioner Research Communication and Mentoring Grants from the Spencer Foundation are intended to support the development of strong communities of teacher researchers. In general, grants range from $2,000 to $15,000 annually.

ICPrize for Collaboration Through Technology
Collaborative teams of librarians (AASL members) and classroom teachers can apply for one of the five $1000 ICPrizes awarded annually that encourage the use of Internet resources to develop meaningful curriculum connections.

University of Virginia's Fellowship, Grant, and Study Opportunities for Teachers has a nice directory of opportunities. Connected to this I found the Massachusetts Department of Education's Guides to Fellowships and Grants for Educators which is a huge comprehensive list of opportunities.

TeachNet: Teacher Grant Opportunities is a bulletin board where opportunities are posted by groups and individuals. It is tied to a large "Let's Talk" conferencing system through which teachers can be contacted throughout the country.

Best wishes for good planning time to all those applying for grants from the Fund this year! And for those of you outside Philadelphia, we hope this page provides some resources for your own funding searches and grant development.

Christina