group photo of grant winners

From sensory gardens to student-constructed ferris wheels, Berkeley County School District teachers have some innovative projects in the works.

Thirty educators/employees from 15 BCSD schools were able to secure funding – either individually or as a team – through Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s 2023 Bright Ideas Education Program.

The program supports innovative and effective classroom education curriculum that cannot be covered by traditional school financing. Individual teachers can apply for grants up to $1,000 while teams of teachers are eligible for grants up to $1,500.

Teachers in public and private schools, K-12 in Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s service area are eligible to participate. Grants are awarded for projects in any discipline and are intended to help teachers within Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s service area produce a better-educated workforce. The grants are designed to help teachers introduce innovative teaching methods.

Grants are awarded annually in a competitive evaluation process. This year, with the support of the community, Berkeley Electric was able to distribute more than $35,000 to 30 different educational projects across the Lowcountry, supporting teachers and their classrooms. 

Congratulations to Westview Elementary's school librarian, Jennifer Beaver, on winning a Bright Ideas Grant! 

Beaver is purchasing supplies for various Storybook STEM and Novel Engineering projects for third, fourth and fifth graders. For example, after she reads the picture book “Beekle: An Unimaginary Friend” to third graders, the students will design their own imaginary friend in Google Drawings and then use felt to sew a stuffed animal version of their imaginary friends using kid-friendly needles. To correlate with science standards, students read “Flash and Gleam: Light in Our World” and then created a light-up greeting card using paper light circuits. On the Novel Engineering side, students create their own wish tree using paperclips and colored masking tape after reading “Wishtree”. 

“This grant will allow us to incorporate STEM principles in the library - the students always look forward to these activities,” Beaver said.