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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

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