Chevron will once again be fuelling North Shore schools with around $140,000 worth of innovative classroom supplies, such as robotics equipment.
The energy company will contribute $1 for every 30-litre fill-up at North Vancouver or West Vancouver gas stations towards education projects in those school districts, under the Fuel Your School program, which runs throughout the month of October.
Teachers are encouraged to devise a classroom wish list and submit their requests to My Class Needs, a Canadian non-profit organization that crowdsources funding for school projects.
My Class Needs then vets the teachers’ proposals for Chevron to fund, ensuring they meet the criteria for the Fuel Your School program, which supports science, technology, engineering and math projects.
This is the second year the North Shore school districts have signed on to the program. North Vancouver schools last year received $100,000 in Fuel Your School funding that was dispersed among 94 different classroom projects.
North Vancouver School District’s director of instruction, Monty Bell, was impressed by how quickly the donated supplies arrived.
“It’s a short turnaround, as long as it fits the parameters, focused on science, technology, engineering or mathematics; the turnaround was like 10 days to actually have the materials in their (teachers) hands,” said Bell.
The classroom “extras” funded under the program ranged from SLR cameras for special education students to robotics equipment.
Bell said the robotics lessons energized the students so much that the school district sponsored a six-week robotics course which spurred on an engineering challenge at Carson Graham secondary.
Meanwhile, West Vancouver schools put the $40,000 they received towards purchasing robotics materials, a 3-D printer, outdoor education equipment and some musical instruments.
The supplies supplement the teachers’ own innovation and collaborative inquiry projects, which are separate from the regular curriculum, explained Lynne Tomlinson, director of instruction with the West Vancouver School District.
When the Canada-wide Fuel Your Schools program launched last year it met with some controversy. The Vancouver school board rejected the corporate funding, saying the company was offering the money “with strings attached” since the Fuel Your School logo would appear at local gas stations.
Just like last year, the North Vancouver Teachers’ Association is none too pleased with the program, with its governing body, in September, passing a motion denouncing Fuel Your School and recommending that their 1,500 teacher members not participate.
Chief among the association’s concerns, according to president Carolyn Pena, include “private companies being able to influence what is taught in the classroom…,” and a conflict of interest with what’s being taught in the new curriculum about environmental stewardship by having an oil company fund the supplies.
Both Bell and Tomlinson said there is no advertising in the schools for the program, and that it’s the teachers that dictate what supplies are being purchased.
“It’s interesting because really the only thing (Chevron) provides is the funding,” said Bell, adding that the school district has strict policies about sponsorships and corporate relationships. “They cannot supersede the professional in the classroom.”
