Excellence In Education (EIE) Grants

IGEF has been awarding EIE grants since 2002 to teachers for classroom projects and opportunities that are creative, innovative and enhance the learning experience of our rural students. To date, 62 grants totaling over $40,825 have been awarded in support of projects proposed for the benefit of IG students and their school.   Thanks to so many of you who have chosen to support the youth of the Iowa-Grant School District.  

2025

• High School Physics Class - Teacher, Mercedes Oglesby, requested funds for model lab equipment to help students learn about constant and accelerated motion with applied force using small scale tracks and carts. 

• Fall Kindergarten Field Trip will be journeying to the Munchkey Orchard and Bures Berry Patch.  Approximately 30 students and their families will learn about types of apples and vegetables, pick their own pumpkins, enjoy a hayride and corn maze. The teachers will follow up making applesauce and cider in the classroom. ​​​​​​​

2024

• High School Band Uniforms - Music and band teacher,  Katie Wanie, requested funds to help with the purchase of new band uniforms.  Previous uniforms were from the 1980's.  IGEF was one of many organizations that supported this effort.

• Fall Kindergarten Field Trip was once again approved too take students on a fall field trip to Black Earth Children's Museum and an area apple orchard.  This is for approximately 40 students and their families promoting family engagement and exposure to local places to play and learn.

2023

• Pi Day Celebration - Math teacher, Makayla Loeffelholz,  presented a Pi Day celebration in the Spring of 2024, complete with many flavors of pie, as a way to make math fun for students while showing them the connection Pi has to real world applications.

2022

• Tower Garden Growing Systems became part of Ag Instructor, Lara Hammerly's hands-on classroom experiences with this advanced form of aeroponics where plants are grown in an air or moist environment rather than soil.  It will be intergrated into classes such as Plant Science, Greenhouse Management & Landscape Design, Food Science and Ag Exploration.

• The Missoula Children's Theater once again came to Iowa-Grant and worked with a cast of sixty students to present "Johnny Appleseed".  After a week of learning scripts, songs, choreography, costuming, and interacting with multi-age groups, the students got to present their efforts in fronte of family and friends.  A big Thank You goes to Tricia Sander (Director since 2016) and assisted ny teachers Jackie Rolli, Heather Mayne, and Darcy Bruer for making this exciting experience possible.

• Kindergarten Field Trip by Heather Mayne:   This trip involves a fall field trip to Black Earth Children's Museum and the Munchkey's Apple Orchard for 40 students and their families promoting family engagement and exposure to local places to play and learn. 

• Music department teacher, Brian Zwick, received a grant to purchase 25 Ukuleles for IGEMS students.  He states: “Thank you IGEF for awarding a grant to the music department! We used the funds to purchase a classroom set of ukuleles. Since purchasing them, about 100 IG students have been able to learn how to play them! Last year, all of the IG 5th and 6th graders did a four-week unit on the ukuleles, where they learned about the history of the instrument, how to maintain the instrument and keep it in good shape (so that many more IG students can learn to play!), how to play notes and create a melody, and how to play chords so they can play along with their favorite songs, or even create their own. This year, 6th grade will continue with a new unit, and the 4th & 5th graders will begin learning how to play during the 2nd semester. As a department, we hope that the music reading skills and group playing skills will create a stronger foundation for Iowa- Grant students as they continue to develop musical skills in Band & Choir.”

• Environmental Impacts grant submitted by Anna Yelinek seeks to promote engaging lab activities with the purchase of a new balance.

2021

• Hazel Dell Landscaping Project, presented by Ag Instructor Lara (Daentl) Hammerly, will provide students in the spring 2022 Landscaping Class an opportunity to plan, design and install plantings to beautify the Hazel Dell country school grounds with selections appropriate to that period in history.  Hazel Dell is located to the west of the high school and was believed to be established around 1876.  To learn more about this school and others that existed in this district, please check out pages 6-66 in the Iowa-Grant History Book for more details.  Thanks goes to the Marge & Clyde Wagner Excellence in Education Endowment Fund for supporting this project.

• Coffee Cart Fridays was begun several years ago by IGEMS special education teachers providing a way for their students to provide coffee to teachers on Fridays and in the process learn how to work together as they develop their communication skills, build self-confidence and understand money concepts.  Now with more support by IGEF they are expanding to the high school with their "Brew Crew" effort and will add an additional feature of reusable mugs personalized to each staff person who participates. Teacher, Dawn Johnson, sees this as a valuable opportunity to increase functional math, written and verbal communication, social thinking and interaction, direction following and sequencing steps which may ultimately lead to more vocational type skills training.

• New Kindergarten Egg Incubator will be in place for spring 2022 when the kindergarten teachers offer that memorable experience again.  This purchase will replace a much older one and provide a more consistant result with more chicks for these kids to learn from.

2020

• Botanical and Community Garden Project presented by Ag Instructor Lara (Daentl) Hammerly is designed to provide students in the “Intro to Ag and Greenhouse/Landscaping Course” an opportunity to build garden beds for the community garden, along with updating the indoor botanical garden at the high school.  The newly established Marge & Clyde Wagner Excellence in Education Endowment Fund helped in part to fund this project. 

• Learning by OSMOsis presented by Carolyn Laufenberg.  The OSMO is an ingenious, innovative and creative accessory that turns the iPad into an interactive hands-on learning space.  It uses a mirror that clips over an iPad camera and then works with Osmo’s free apps (like Tangram, number and letter tiles.) Osmos can be used for spelling, math, tangrams, problem solving, engineering, physics and drawing games for K-4 and special education classrooms. 

• Kindergarten Field Trip by Heather Mayne.  This trip involves a fall field trip to the Black Earth Children’s Museum and the Peck pumpkin patch for 55 students and their families.  This event promotes family engagement and exposure to local places to play and learn.

• Superior Coastal Climate Camp 2020 by Tim Donovan.  The focus of this 6th grade 3 day, 2 night trip is to study the effects of climate change in forest and water ecosystems in the Apostle Islands, and to learn how climate change is affecting American and Ojibwa culture.  This trip was slated for June 2020 but has been delayed until further notice pending the Covid 19 situation.

• Social Emotional Journals.  Through these individual student journals presented to fifty 7th graders, teacher, Holly Allen, hopes to provide social and emotional well being during the uncertainties of the COVID.  Students will be able to express their thoughts, feelings and self-reflection in these personal diaries which will only be shared with the teacher but hopefully provide opportunity for general discussion of issues that concern the students.

• Science Stream Table.  Science teacher, Kendall Foley, will be using a height adjustable stream and sand table to explore how water moves and affects the world around them.  The table allows 5 different water jets to flow at once to demonstrate erosion and drainage patterns, formation of stream processes and delta and lake formation through a removable dam.  Sixty 8th graders and forty-five 5th graders will experience this hands-on approach and apply the thinking to how water flows around where they live with natural creeks, water falls and farm land.

2017

• In the fall of 2017 The Iowa-Grant Educational Foundation once again helped to sponsor 7th graders, as they experienced several days of "Trees For Tomorrow" learning in Eagle River, WI under the direction of teacher, Randy Rodgers.  On their way to Eagle River, IGEMS "Trees For Tomorrow" 7th grade students hiked at Parfrey's Glen State Natural Area.
  

• Winter 2017 - The IGEF was one of the sponsors when twenty four students from the Iowa-Grant Middle School traveled to Eagle River for a Trees for Tomorrow trip in January. Seventh grade teacher, Randy Rodgers, along with 2 other chaperones from IGEMS guided the students as they experienced snowshoeing, cross country skiing, tree, plant and animal identification and tracking, journaling their observations, radio telemetry, biomimicry, land use discussions and time for creative inventions using designs from nature.

Mailing address for donations: IGEF Gift Processing Center, P.O. Box 81, Platteville, WI 53818

Affiliated with Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin (CFSW) 

Sarah Latimer - CFSW Donor Servies Rep - ext 7010 - sarah@cfsw.org