Cleveland Heights - University Heights City School District

Boulevard GAMTTEP Grant Q&A

September 20, 2011
Cleveland Heights, OH

Boulevard Elementary School in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District is a recent recipient of a competitive grant from the Garrett A. Morgan Technology and Transportation Education Program (GAMTTEP).  The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration awarded the school $100,000 which will be used to serve the students at Boulevard Elementary in grades K-5.

How will the GAMTTEP Grant help the students at Boulevard Elementary School?

Through Elementary Flow at Boulevard: Seeding Inquiry into Engineering, students will engage in transportation engineering projects by grade level to explore the “flow” around them through projects illustrating traffic (auto, school bus, bicycle, and pedestrian), transport (moving garden goods to market), and water (transporting water to school planting via local watersheds).  Active partnerships with educational, governmental, and organizational partners will provide real-world experiences through presentations and tours and provide role models for careers in engineering, science, and math.

What can parents and students expect to see in the classroom as a result of the grant?

Parents will see their children involved in hands-on active projects that explore the world around them using science, math, and engineering principles.

Kindergarten students will design a variety of seed packages that allow the safe transportation of seeds from one area to another, investigating the way in which different seeds (maple seeds, dandelion, acorns, etc.) are transported in the natural environment, ensuring the survival of the plant.

First grade students will design cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes using a variety of materials and colored surfaces, then analyze their ability to maintain temperature.

Second grade students will design and build portable weather stations that measure wind speed and wind direction.

Third grade students will map and design roadways, parking lots, walkways, a biological field laboratory, and community gardens based on investigations of properties of different types of soil and rocks.

Fourth grade students will design, build, and use a scale stream table model to demonstrate the impact of change in transportation, roadways, bridges, and walkways on the weathering processes in and around the school.

Fifth graders will design and build a self-sustaining model ecosystem that contains a solar energy collection device.