2022 Fall/Winter Highlights of Hope
This is the 2022 Fall/Winter edition of Van Andel Institute's Highlights of Hope donor publication.
This is the 2022 Fall/Winter edition of Van Andel Institute's Highlights of Hope donor publication.
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EDUCATION<br />
Building the future <strong>of</strong> education<br />
Bringing science right to your community<br />
Our intrepid team <strong>of</strong> expert educators hit<br />
the road to bring inquiry-based science<br />
education right into your community<br />
with Curiosity on Wheels, a customizable<br />
program that gets students thinking and<br />
acting like scientists with hands-on, funfilled<br />
STEM investigations.<br />
We’ve welcomed thousands <strong>of</strong> students to<br />
our downtown Grand Rapids classrooms<br />
over the years, but Curiosity on Wheels lets<br />
us take our popular science explorations<br />
out to the greater West Michigan<br />
community and beyond. We have reached<br />
students as far out as Flint, with plans to<br />
return for more camps there in the future.<br />
VAI took Curiosity on Wheels on the road to<br />
partner with Newaygo County Prevention<br />
<strong>of</strong> Child Abuse and Neglect for a series <strong>of</strong><br />
summer camps in three West Michigan<br />
locations: Fremont, Newaygo and White<br />
Cloud. These summer camps were made<br />
possible through generous donors.<br />
Whether you’re a school administrator<br />
looking to inspire students, a camp director<br />
in need <strong>of</strong> innovative programs or just<br />
someone wanting to have fun, Curiosity on<br />
Wheels can deliver.<br />
Addressing today’s project-based content<br />
and pr<strong>of</strong>essional development needs<br />
VAI’s project-based learning programs help<br />
teachers bring this proven instructional<br />
method to life in their own classrooms.<br />
Many educators seek pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
development that will give them the tools<br />
and strategies to make effective problembased<br />
learning a reality for their students.<br />
In the first six months <strong>of</strong> <strong>2022</strong>, we saw<br />
high demand for our extensive suite <strong>of</strong><br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional development programs with<br />
Flex PD — a comprehensive, affordable<br />
model that promotes tangible shifts in<br />
instruction and is robustly supported by<br />
research and teachers. Our Blue Apple<br />
projects saw some <strong>of</strong> their most successful<br />
months since inception in 2019.<br />
Learning gaps caused by the COVID-19<br />
pandemic also have been front and center,<br />
bringing additional emphasis on summer<br />
school. VAI rolled out Project-Based<br />
Summer School, a program to help summer<br />
school teachers accelerate learning.<br />
Helping teachers and administrators,<br />
wherever they are<br />
As the world returns more fully to in-person<br />
interaction, we haven’t lost sight <strong>of</strong> the<br />
power <strong>of</strong> the internet to close the distance<br />
between teachers far and wide in the name<br />
<strong>of</strong> networking and sharing best practices at<br />
a time when both are sorely needed.<br />
VAI works to meet teachers and<br />
administrators wherever they are through<br />
a range <strong>of</strong> online resources. Our Timely<br />
Topics are a series <strong>of</strong> free, 15-minute<br />
mini-lessons that have been downloaded<br />
more than 3,500 times by educators in over<br />
30 countries. Our free webinars provide<br />
teachers strategies they can use from their<br />
classroom right away and attract on average<br />
STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN HANDS-ON SCIENCE ACTIVITIES WITH VAN ANDEL INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION<br />
18 | VAN ANDEL INSTITUTE HIGHLIGHTS OF HOPE