Education Grant WinnerMelinda Valdez

In this new age of advanced technology, coding plays a big role in steering the continuance of an ever-evolving area. It’s an interesting time, and one that entails extensive research, in-depth exploring, and will serve as a beneficial canvas for students to develop critical thinking skills.

Melinda Valdez, educator at Bob Beard Elementary School, wanted to gift her students with the resources they needed to expand their train of thought and help harness their engaged energy. Thanks to Power of the Dollar^® members, she was awarded a $1,000 grant in December 2023 for her “Creating Tomorrow’s Innovators with Ozobots and Mini Sphero” idea, which she then used to purchase, well, Ozobots and Mini Sphero, of course!

“My best friend happens to be a member of Firstmark… and she said you really need to think about getting your account, apply for these grants, they do wonderful things for education,” said Valdez. “I applied for the grant, and it was such an easy process; the questions were not overwhelming. It just let me explain the needs of my classroom… and wow, I can’t believe I was chosen!”

Creating their own algorithms, students used these small robots called Ozobots and controlled their movement by color coding different pathways on big pieces of paper. They also enjoy navigating the Mini Sphero, which is an app-controlled robot that has dozens of coding commands and challenges them to code through math integration. These coding products are also vastly helpful to students who struggle with mathematics and reading because it engages the mind to think logically and sparks a newfound love for robotics and programming!

“The kids get so excited and say, ‘Mom and Dad, guess what we did? Can I have one?’” she said. “They never knew what was available, how to code a robot… now they do. And now they can apply it to not just STEM, but in everyday life!”