Partnership Grants

The Partnership Grant Program is the heart of the Business Coalition. The program joins business partners with teachers who then work together to create meaningful educational experiences that allow students to see how their skills apply to the world of work. The program connects the standards-based curriculum content to the skills that relate to real life experiences. As a result, students have chosen the specific fields explored through the partnership program as careers.

2010-2011 Partnership Grants

GRADE LEVEL: Kindergarten G.W. Brown School
EDUCATOR: Melissa Duguie
BUSINESS PARTNER: Zip Type
GRANT AWARD: $1,500
Our Community: An A-Z Guide To Safety
To create our book, children will brainstorm a list (from A to Z) of people, places, and items in our community that help to keep us healthy and safe. The list will be made through a shared writing process where children will share the pen with the teacher (i.e. writing known words and sounding out unknown words). This list will then be used to guide our learning on safety in the community.
Throughout the year, we invited community workers into our classroom and went on walking field trips. Each visit taught us more about our community and its resources. We took photos and will draw pictures to create the images throughout the book. The final product will be printed at Zip Type Printing Services.

GRADE LEVEL: Kindergarten G.W. Brown School
EDUCATORS: Melissa Duguie, Ali Pappas
BUSINESS PARTNER: Bill Hoyt, Painter
GRANT AWARD: $1,000
Playing it Safe
The Brown School is working hard to make the building and its grounds an age-appropriate place for our young students. The EBC grant provides funds allow us to paint structured games and activities on the paved area of the playground. Currently students have a small area with a play structure and a larger paved area that is under-utilized.
Games and activities will be taught in Physical Education classes and carried over into recesses. These games also encourage use of social skills taught through the Second Step Program.

GRADE LEVEL: 5 Rupert A. Nock Middle School
EDUCATOR: Brad Balkus
BUSINESS PARTNERS: Keiver Willard Lumber Co. and Mass Audubon
GRANT AWARD: $1,420
Bat Houses
The north shore of Massachusetts supports some of the most incredible and unique natural resources in the country. Nature enthusiasts from around the globe visit our area and wonder at the health, abundance and diversity of our local ecosystems. Bats however, a major participant in the critical cycles of our local ecology, are under threat and in serious decline. White nose syndrome, loss of habitat, climate change and environmental degradation are threatening the future existence of all hibernating bat species in North America. Some areas of the northeast have experienced an 80% decline in bat populations over the past two years. Partnering with the Keiver Willard Lumber Company and the Mass Audubon, the technology engineering program at grade five worked to increase student awareness of bats in our local and global ecosystems. Our focus was on: preserving local bat habitat, threats to bat populations, and the effects of bat disappearance on humans. Students learned and used the engineering design process, CAD (Pro-Engineer), and materials tools and machines to design, build, and place bat boxes to help sustain our local bat populations and keep our local ecosystems healthy

GRADE LEVEL: 8 Rupert A. Nock Middle School
EDUCATORS: Mary Kate Allan and Kristen Marroncelli
BUSINESS PARTNER: Strem Chemicals Inc.
GRANT AWARD: $1,500
Chemical Bonding
The purpose of this collaboration with Strem Chemicals was to enable students to participate in and observe chemistry in action. We have spent a great deal of class time discussing bonding. This demonstration was critical for our students because they were able to witness ionic bond formation, which can often be a challenging and abstract concept for middle school students. Our students were also able to participate in and observe a catalytic decomposition reaction. The Strem Chemicals’ chemists designed an interactive demonstration that kept students of all levels engaged and increased our students’ general interest in chemistry. Due to the generosity of Strem Chemicals and the EBC, we have received a variety of equipment that will help us further increase our students’ general interest in chemistry and improve their understanding of major chemistry concepts.

GRADE LEVEL: 9-12 Newburyport High School
EDUCATOR: Betsy Scott
BUSINESS PARTNERS: Country Rehabilitation and Nursing Center and Wentworth Greenhouses
GRANT AWARD: $1,750
Plant Therapy
This year the Plant Therapy program continued to partner with Country Rehabilitation and Nursing Center and Wentworth Greenhouses. Through this project, High School Language Based Learning Disabilities teacher, Betsy Scott, taught her students team building, social skills, research and writing skills using a hands-on approach to learning.

Students traveled to Wentworth Greenhouses to meet with Brian Wentworth to learn about the horticulture business. As part of the Wentworth Greenhouses project, Brian Wentworth taught the students about the various aspects of the horticulture business. Country Rehabilitation and Nursing Center’s, Tracey Tibbets provided training to the students about the issues and needs of the elderly, as well as the basics of the health care field. In the classroom, they role played and researched various issue of the elderly with the end product of a research paper. During the students’ visits with the gardening club at the Country Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, students shared their newly obtained horticultural knowledge with the residents to facilitate memory enhancement, work on range of motion, awaken their senses while providing an opportunity to visit and enjoy plants with the elders. The project provided connections for the students to their learning and the real life environment of health care and horticulture.

The Plant Therapy program is a continuing program that has been successful in facilitating the transition from school to work for the last 16 years for the Language Based Learning Disabled students at N.H.S. Several former students have chosen to work in the health care field, while another student completed his Master’s degree in horticulture from the University of Massachusetts. Others are pursuing degrees in teaching. This exhibits the close ties to the “world of work” coupled with a thematic method to build skills, teach stewardship, build self esteem, and help some of the frailest, often neglected members of our community

GRADE LEVEL: 9-12 English and Creative Writing Newburyport High School
EDUCATORS: Debra Szabo
BUSINESS PARTNER: Minuteman Press
GRANT AWARD: $650
Poetry Soup
Poetry Soup, a monthly gathering of student-writers and their mentors, has been running
for the past eighteen years as an extracurricular activity. It has grown from a small group
of about a dozen students to a core group of twenty five students, with an additional fifteen
who occasionally attend. Our guest speakers, who agree to publish their work along with
the students, include professors from Salem State College, Simmons College, and Endicott
College, along with performance poets, and our beloved local Powwow River Poets.
For the past seven years, through the generosity of the EBC, students have committed their
writing to posterity in the Poetry Soup Magazine. It is exciting for us to publish our students’
work side-by-side with that of professional poets. Additionally, students have learned about
graphic design, layout, and printing, as they bring the magazine through the necessary steps
to publication with the help of Sumner Missenheimer and Minuteman Press. Finally, students
have been responsible for distribution, learning that even artists must partake in the world of
salesmanship. For the past two years, students were particularly successful when they set up a
table in front of the Firehouse and sold magazines during the Newburyport Literary Festival.
In addition, the magazine has brought recognition to Newburyport High School, when it
has been distributed at numerous teaching conferences around the country by Newburyport
resident Poet, Rhina Espaillat.

GRADE LEVEL: 1-3 Francis T. Bresnahan School
EDUCATOR: John Gangemi
BUSINESS PARTNER: Village Pet Shop
GRANT AWARD: $1,200
Science Center (Mobile Animal Habitats)
The Science Centers, funded through an EBC Partnership Grant, has allowed the Bresnahan
School to continue to build a connection between the habitats on display and our science,
language arts, and visual art curriculum. Students in all grades have had the opportunity to
study the aquatic and terrestrial exhibits.

The displays have been very well received by students and teachers. Some displays can be
moved from room to room at various times of the year and enable many students and teachers
to use the displays for various curriculum projects. This year we expanded the present displays
by adding a fiddler crab display and leopard gecko display into classrooms. Additionally, we
updated the existing displays with new animals, substrate, and background. Updating the
displays involved purchasing new livestock and other required materials to maintain and
support the animal(s) habitat.

Al Hom at Village Pet shop is a vital partner in this endeavor. His expertise and enthusiasm
for animals is contagious to our students. One particular student earns time every week to
help Mr. Hom with the care and maintenance of the habitats. Mr. Hom has developed lesson
plans for his time with this student to create a weekly learning opportunity. The resulting
enthusiasm has lead to the student’s parents purchasing a tortoise for him to care for at home.
Another classroom has created observation journals on their African albino frogs and fish. The
class consistently looks forward to Mr. Hom’s weekly visits to utilize his expertise to answer
their questions. Mr. Hom has truly become a partner with the Bresnahan School community.
The goals for this year’s project included: Updating and maintaining displays; adding
appropriate animals, plants, equipment, and fixtures; adding two new displays; and making
the habitats available to all classes in grades 1 to 3 for curriculum connection projects.
Curriculum areas included: science, English language arts, math, and visual art.

GRADE LEVEL: 3 Francis T. Bresnahan School
EDUCATOR: Eileen Whitney
BUSINESS PARTNER: Custom House Maritime Museum
GRANT AWARD: $255 (awarded in 2009-2010)
Walking Tour of Newburyport
The trip to the Custom House Maritime Museum enriched and solidified our knowledge
of our special place called Newburyport. The students viewed the treasures of the Maritime
Museum as part of a culmination of the study of Newburyport. History came to life as the
children walked the culturally rich streets of Newburyport guided by the Maritime docents.
They experienced the thrill of reenacting the “Newburyport Tea Party” which took place just
three days before the famous “Boston Tea Party.” They also had the pleasure of finding a bell
fashioned by silversmith Paul Revere at the Old South Church on Federal Street.

GRADE LEVEL: 8 Molin Upper Elementary School
EDUCATORS: Jen Groskin and Mike Pirollo
BUSINESS PARTNER: Beacon Coalition
GRANT AWARD: $1,531
Youth Assets Project
The Youth Assets Project (YAP) program will continue district-wide literacy initiative of
independent reading. It will also continue 7th grade evening book club initiatives. YAP is
an evening book program where students and adults read and then share ideas based on a
fiction novel. The goal is to build assets through discussion and comparison of real life verse
fiction. Topics are derived from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered by the Beacon
Coalition. These surveys have shown that Newburyport middle school students exhibit some
tendencies toward risk-taking behaviors on a variety of levels. Assets are a list of 40 elements
that are proven to reduce risk-taking behaviors among adolescents. Building assets has become
a part of the school’s strategic plan and school wellness policy

YAP provided our 8th grade students with opportunities to discuss issues in their lives
and contrast these issues with the characters in specific novels. The program also helps our
students to connect with resources (programs and/or individuals) in the greater Newburyport
Community. Experts and other adults from the Beacon Coalition and the Newburyport
Community will serve as a knowledge base for these various assets and issues.

GRADE LEVEL: 7-12 Rupert A. Nock Middle School and Newburyport High School
EDUCATOR: John Halloran
BUSINESS PARTNER: Parker River National Wildlife Refuge
GRANT AWARD: $1,500
NEWBURYPORT GULF OF MAINE INSTITUTE TEAM (GOMI) THE PEPPERWEED PROJECT
The EBC has continued to support the Newburyport GOMI team, a committed group
of Newburyport High School students, who help raise environmental awareness in the
community and throughout the Great Marsh region. The group’s objectives are to raise
awareness of environmental issues through education and outreach, and to locate, educate, and
help eradicate the invasive species, perennial Pepperweed.

In the last year, the group has continued to serve the community as appointed representatives
to 8 Towns and the Bay (8T&B), a regional environmental board of coastal Essex County
communities. In this role, they have mapped the presence of Pepperweed in the Great Marsh,
inspired the Parker River Refuge to hire an invasive species coordinator to oversee control
efforts, and coordinated student volunteer efforts at NHS. This past school year, the team
began to teach Watershed, Climate Change and Local Environments classes to groups of 7th
graders at the Nock School. They also worked with their principal, Michael Parent, to provide
leadership in an expanded community service effort at the high school. Most recently, they
hosted a “Green Career Workshop” and an “Environmental Issues Forum” as part of a GOMI
mini workshop for US teams held at the Parker River Refuge. Over 60 teens from all over
New England participated.

GOMI teams act locally yet think bio-regionally. We will continue to help move Newburyport
student education beyond the confines of the community to a bioregional perspective.