Calvin Donaldson Environmental Science Academy now has new books and new creation stations in its library.Calvin Donaldson students are imagining, learning and creating now more than ever thanks to a recent grant for the school’s library.
Calvin Donaldson Environmental Science Academy librarian Selena Seymour said a $12,000 grant from Snap Dragon Foundation will allow the school to offer new, popular books and maker-spaces in the library.
The grant is being used to purchase high-interest books with diverse characters to spark the interests of the student population at Calvin Donaldson, which ranges from Hispanic to African-American to Anglo-Saxon, Seymour said.
“We are lacking new books that kids want to read,” she added. “With the foundation money, we plan to purchase popular books with diverse characters, because kids like to read about characters that are like themselves.”
For example, Seymour is using the grant to purchase books like the EllRay Jakes Series.
“EllRay Jakes is in third grade, so the characters are their age and he’s [EllRay] black and most of the students here are black too,” said Seymour. “So, it’s nice to have that connection, because it’s hard to find.”
She said the maker-spaces will further inspire reading, helping the magnet school’s students reach or stay on grade level. For example, Seymour said CDESA students can make Loom Bands in the maker-space, and in the same place, they can check out books detailing how to create Loom Bands.
” If you have a maker space, kids want to read because they are building things,” she said. “The Calvin Donaldson Library is a fun and positive place to be. It’s not a place to sit down and be quiet all the time. Students can explore. They’ve done things I could not imagine them doing.”
One of the maker-spaces involves a marble run that engages students in figuring out the different ways gravity affects the marble. That segued into a talk about how rollercoasters use gravity, and then students built small-scale rollercoasters using the marble runs.
In conjunction with reading the book “My Librarian is a Camel,” which details portable libraries in Nigeria and Kenya, students learned not only about other cultures, but also got a geography lesson.
“They have a portable library on camels that comes to them,” Seymour said, referencing the book’s storyline. “There are really cool online clips in it. We had atlases on the table and they had to choose a country and with their iPads they looked up their country specifics. And then they had to construct a library that would work in that country, like what’s the environment like and what’s the terrain like? They had creative ideas.”
This is Seymour’s first year to serve as a librarian at CDESA. She taught at Normal Park for six years, and prior to that, lived in England for one year.
While in England Seymour said she was amazed when visiting the Hive Library in Worcestershire, which has a phenomenal children’s section. The library was connected to the University of England and served as both the city’s and university’s library.
“I want to pattern the Calvin Donaldson Environment Science Academy Library after the Hive Library in England and after the Chattanooga Library,” Seymour said. “Both of them are welcoming and kid-friendly with great activities and book selections.”
She plans to use $500 from local philanthropic organization Sankofa Fund and is applying for a $750 Junior League Grant to fund more maker-spaces.
Email Katie Ward at kward@timesfreepress.com.