Mikey Ramot, RAFT’s lead coordinator for STEAM education events, shows 5th graders including Brandon Corpus, center, how to do a science experiment at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School on Oct. 6, 2023, in San Jose, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
In classrooms around the Bay Area, old Adobe Acrobat DVDs, rubber bands and straws are leading rich second lives.
The donated materials, delivered to schools by the nonprofit RAFT and assembled by small hands, become playful science projects: tiny race cars that start and stop, climb and crash — proof of the power of physics.
“It’s a wonderful lab experience that comes to us, already put together,” said Gilbert Rodriquez, principal of Mt. Pleasant Elementary School in east San Jose, where giddy fifth-graders circled a table and then sprawled across a classroom floor to test their rolling creations.
For nearly 30 years, the Resource Area For Teaching (RAFT) has been helping teachers transform the classroom learning experience by offering interactive education, buttressing a traditional curriculum.
“Hands on, minds on,” said Nimisha Khanduja, director of RAFT’s learning programs. “Lessons aren’t one-dimensional. They’re three-dimensional. That’s much more engaging.”
But with pandemic-related learning loss and low test scores, teachers face increasing pressure to rely on textbooks.
Handcrafted projects take planning and risk getting squeezed out of busy academic schedules. The projects can be messy and demand time to create and clean up. And science-focused field trips are expensive, costing $1,500 to $1,800 per trip to load kids onto a bus.
RAFT’s new “Maker Mobile,” a white Ford cargo van packed with project kits, makes things simple. The van travels to schools anywhere within Santa Clara County, as well as parts of Alameda, Contra Costa, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo counties.
RAFT is seeking $25,000 to serve 500 students in under-resourced schools. For each $50 donation, one student will receive up to five additional RAFT activities. Donations also will help the “Maker Mobile” visit more schools, as well as boost the number of teacher trainings.
One recent morning, the Maker Mobile rolled into the schoolyard of Mt. Pleasant Elementary School, then set up the day’s lesson — energy, friction and momentum — for a crowd of wide-eyed youngsters.
“What’s going to happen? You’re going to find out!” said coordinator Michael Ramot (“Call me Mr. Mikey!”), fluent in English and Tagalog, with a smattering of Spanish.
In a textbook, there’s only one right answer. But the projects — rubber band-powered race cars, made with DVDs, plastic lids, straws, syringes, rubber bands and other simple materials — had many outcomes. They went fast and slow. They started and stalled.
Why? “Potential energy!” Ramot shouted, above the cacophony. “Kinetic energy!”
Some cars had two wheels; others, four. Some wheels were big; others were small. Cars drove straight, crooked, even backwards.
“These are variables!” he yelled.
When the cars slowed, the students more tightly wound the rubber bands. When they wobbled or rolled off course, wheels got re-aligned.
“You got it!” Ramot told the crowd. “Tell me your observations! What’s your secret?”
Ten-year-old Sofia Ruvalcaba carefully adjusted some levers and then explained her team’s strategy. “I’m trying to get it perfect,” she said. “I’m modeling a real car.”
Phoenix Stephens, 11, credited his team’s success to a technique of “switching it up a lot, making things bigger and smaller.”
RAFT was founded by local educator Mary Simon in 1994 after years of teaching in the classroom. Her goal was to provide teachers with idea sheets, activity kits, materials and other resources in the STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts and Math) fields.
Her role was, in essence, a matchmaker.
The Bay Area is home to many successful corporations with stored surplus and outdated materials. Much of it ends up in landfill.
Schools, on the other hand, are strapped for supplies. According to a federal Department of Education survey, 94% of public school teachers in the U.S. pay for classroom materials without reimbursement, spending an average of $1,000 out of their own pockets. With rising inflation, the prices of many of those items are climbing.
There’s a role for structure, drills and textbooks, teachers say. Without the basics, students can’t master complex scientific theories. But creativity is needed to solve many real-world problems and can prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.
“Hands-on projects help them make the connection that science, technology, engineering, arts and math is all around them,” said Elida MacArthur, superintendent of Mount Pleasant Elementary School District. “These are everyday experiences.”
“We’re living in Silicon Valley,” she said. “We want our students to have access to the careers that are around them.”
Founded in a Libby’s Cannery packing house in Sunnyvale, RAFT grew from 100 to 1,000 members in its first nine months.
Now it lives in a cavernous 32,000-square-foot warehouse in San Jose where it serves an estimated 6,000 educators and 100,000 students. RAFT provides workshops, camps and a resource room with educational specialists who help teachers plan projects or lessons.
For a $25 annual membership fee, educators and parents can buy supplies at deeply discounted rates. Gifts and grant funding helps subsidize RAFT’s costs.
Products come from computer, electronic, biotech and pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers, among others. Each year, RAFT collects an estimated 300 tons of donated material destined for the landfill from over 200 companies across the Bay Area.
Corporations also donate volunteers — an estimated 5,000 a year — to pack kits.
Deep bins hold hundreds of traditional educational tools, such as rulers, binder clips and tape. A dozen black markers cost $1.50; a half-pound bag of rubber bands, $2.00; colorful Tempura paints, $5.00; packs of 1.5 volt batteries, $1.00. Chairs and computer monitors, donated after office downsizings, are a bargain.
But there are also crates that offer more exotic fare, ranging from Microflex NeoPro Chloroprene lab gloves and Falcon cell culture flasks, to swag from collapsed First Republic Bank and campaign posters heralding the failed mayoral ambitions of San Jose Councilmember Dev Davis.
“Teachers already have a million ideas,” said RAFT Development Director Katherine Ball.
“What are they going to do, and how are they going to do it?” she said. “That’s where we come into the equation.”
THE WISH BOOK SERIES
Wish Book is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by The Mercury News. Since 1983, Wish Book has been producing series of stories during the holiday season that highlight the wishes of those in need and invite readers to help fulfill them.
WISH
Donations will help 500 students in under-resourced schools participate in Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT) activities. For each $50 donation, one student will receive up to five additional RAFT projects. Donations also will help the “Maker Mobile” visit more schools, as well as boost the number of teacher trainings. Goal: $25,000.
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