Fueling up helps ignite students’ brains at H.L. Suverkrup
Sarahi Rodriguez made a windmill. Orine Aguilar built a robot of some sorts. Suri Ambriz fashioned a totem pole.
The students are just a few of 28 third-graders who had just been handed Legos on Wednesday morning at H.L. Suverkrup Elementary School in the Crane School District. The materials were bought with funds raised from Chevron’s Fuel Your School program, which is underway in Yuma County through the end of October.
“Yuma is the only place in Arizona that is participating in this program,” this year, said Craig Shay, who, along with his parents, is the owner/operator of the Chevron-affiliated company. This is Shay Oil’s fourth year participating in the program, which has brought more than $300,000 to Yuma County schools.
The way the program works is very simple, Shay said. For every driver who purchases at least 8 gallons of gas at the pump or in a Chevron store in Yuma County, $1 is donated to the crowd-funding site DonorsChoose.org to fund Yuma projects listed by local teachers.
Projects have to meet some eligibility criteria set forth by Chevron, Shay said.
Representatives from Shay Oil Company, the Children’s Museum of Yuma County and other education leaders were on hand to watch the unveiling of materials for Carina Wilhite’s project “Hands On, Brains On.”
Before Wilhite’s students got to open the boxes of materials that were shipped from Amazon and other sources, Children’s Museum of Yuma County Executive Director Melissa Rushin Irr encouraged the students to ponder what they were doing.
“Your questions show your deep thinking and they show your scientific thinking, too, and your wonder about the world,” she said. “But always challenge yourself to ask those questions about what you are doing…and how you’re doing it and why.”
And then the playing, er, learning began.
“Legos are not just for fun because you don’t realize you’re learning with them,” Wilhite told her students.
Hands-on activities help students form partnerships and learn cooperation, she said. They also help students learn to read and follow directions (in order), and problem solve.
The Fuel Your School program is on track to fund between 35 to 45 teachers this year with projects all over Yuma County, said Chris Shipley, senior associate for the public affairs firm Kyle Moyer, which represents Chevron in Arizona.
Last year’s program raised $100,000 and funded 112 teachers in 43 Yuma public schools reaching nearly 11,000 local students in grades k-12. Nationwide, Chevron raised more than $5 million for education materials.