Celebrating teachers

YEC awards grants to local teachers for their bright ideas

York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive was proud to award a total of $14,500 to sup­port projects sub­mit­ted by 17 teach­ers from Clover, Fort Mill, Rock Hill and York in 2022. Teach­ers were award­ed up to $1,000 to imple­ment inno­v­a­tive learn­ing tech­niques in their class­rooms through the Bright Ideas Grant Pro­gram fund­ed by York Elec­tric and our mem­ber-fund­ed Oper­a­tion Round Up Trust.

A com­mit­tee con­sist­ing of three Oper­a­tion Round Up board mem­bers, one win­ner from last year’s Bright Ideas pro­gram, Dr. Anne R. Witte, and two York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive employ­ees reviewed the teacher appli­ca­tions. Grants were award­ed to projects that will cre­ate new ways to make learn­ing fun and mem­o­rable for stu­dents.

Help us cel­e­brate their bright ideas and com­mit­ment to our stu­dents by con­grat­u­lat­ing them on a job well done!

Grants are avail­able to all kinder­garten through 12th-grade teach­ers in York Electric’s ser­vice ter­ri­to­ry. If you are a local teacher inter­est­ed in apply­ing for the Bright Ideas Grant Oppor­tu­ni­ty for the 2023/2024 school year, the online appli­ca­tion will be open begin­ning July 10, 2023.

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Sarah Nivens, Cot­ton Belt Ele­men­tary School, York

Project: “Robot­ics Kits for STEAM Club.”

“I want to give my stu­dents var­i­ous expe­ri­ences while they are young so that they see what kinds of things they can do out in the ‘real world.’ I want my stu­dents to find STEAM top­ics inter­est­ing and fun. The goal of these robots is for my stu­dents to learn to build and code their robot to move in a spe­cif­ic way.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Michelle Young, Bethel Ele­men­tary School, Clover

Project: “Springs of Learn­ing.” Project will pro­vide 5th-grade stu­dents ongo­ing STEAM learn­ing sup­port.

“Our goals are to imple­ment STEAM-based learn­ing to strength­en inquiry and col­lab­o­ra­tion across grade lev­els. We also want to inte­grate mul­ti­ple grade lev­el stan­dards includ­ing design solu­tions, data analy­sis and test­ing.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Tay­lor McSwain, Hick­o­ry Grove Sharon Ele­men­tary School, York

Project: “HGSES Fit­ness Club”

“The #1 goal of the Fit­ness Club is to cre­ate healthy habits for my stu­dents. I want these stu­dents to get into the rou­tine of exer­cis­ing each day in hopes they will con­tin­ue those habits lat­er in life. Oth­er goals for this club are to help stu­dents become health­i­er right now, and to become bet­ter ath­letes.”

Pho­to cred­it: Emma Anne Mob­ley

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Stacey Hunter, and her team, Ver­la May­field-Ben­jamin (left) and Lori Patrick, Rawl­in­son Road Mid­dle School, Rock Hill.

Project: “Sen­so­ry Sup­port” for 6th to 8th grade stu­dents in the Autis­tic Pro­gram.

“My goal teach­ing those with autism is to help them devel­op and learn sen­so­ry strate­gies and how to process sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion. Some stu­dents might be sen­si­tive to sen­so­ry inputs and find it dif­fi­cult to stay calm and focused. Oth­ers might need more sen­so­ry inputs to under­stand the sen­sa­tion. My over­all goal is for them to become inde­pen­dent and learn how to self-advo­cate for them­selves on what they need.”

Pho­to cred­it: Stacey Hunter

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Scott Boyd, Clover High School, Clover

Project: “Smoke and Fog Machine”

“This will help pre­pare stu­dents inter­est­ed in Fire Sci­ence pre­pare for their state test­ing and give them first-hand expe­ri­ence in what it is like to be in a haz­ardous envi­ron­ment.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Ash­leigh Erb, York Inter­me­di­ate School, York

Project: “Amaz­ing Me…in 3D,” sup­port­ing STEM learn­ing for spe­cial edu­ca­tion stu­dents in 5th and 6th grade.

“I would like to give these stu­dents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn and take advan­tage of rapid­ly chang­ing tech­nol­o­gy. More often than not, this pop­u­la­tion of stu­dents does not have access to oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage with high­er-lev­el think­ing out­side the class­room and even in the class­room because resources are very lim­it­ed giv­en school bud­gets. I would like to give these spe­cial pens as an acces­si­ble means to explore and learn how 3D tech­nolo­gies work and impact our dai­ly lives.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Jes­si­ca Hardy, Kings Town Ele­men­tary School, Fort Mill

Project: “First Tee Golf Unit,” sup­port­ing social emo­tion­al learn­ing from kinder­garten to 5th grade. Hardy sup­ports her project through research that shows how the game of golf pro­vides “life skills that coin­cide with the sport.”

“Imple­ment­ing golf into our phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum brings expo­sure to the game and the skills involved that many stu­dents might not get to expe­ri­ence oth­er­wise. The First Tee cur­ricu­lum cen­ters around the game of golf but also brings social and emo­tion­al learn­ing into each les­son. Life-long skills and char­ac­ter behav­iors are also taught in each les­son such as respect, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and con­fi­dence. We look for­ward to teach­ing golf to our Kings Town Ele­men­tary stu­dents.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Vick­ie McCorkle, Hick­o­ry Grove Sharon Ele­men­tary School, York

Project: “Note Read­ing Can Be Fun.” Intro­duces stu­dents from kinder­garten to 6th grade to music.

“Most stu­dents look for­ward to mak­ing music in many ways. I plan to offer as many hands-on expe­ri­ences to my stu­dents as pos­si­ble. After stu­dents learn the basics of note read­ing, it is impor­tant that they use a vari­ety of instru­ments to apply what they have learned. A good foun­da­tion in music is so impor­tant and help­ing stu­dents to under­stand ‘why” they are learn­ing this skill is some­times chal­leng­ing. In the future, I hope that my stu­dents will be able to share what they have learned with our school and com­mu­ni­ty.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Tra­cy Mitchell, Grig­gs Road Ele­men­tary School, Clover

Project: “Inno­v­a­tive Cre­ativ­i­ty with Legos.” Project will cre­ate a mak­er­space in the school’s media cen­ter.

“In this space, stu­dents will learn through inquiry-based play that focus­es on lit­er­a­cy and con­tent cur­ricu­lum. This will pro­vide equal access and oppor­tu­ni­ties for all stu­dents by pro­vid­ing the need­ed mate­ri­als for projects inspired through men­tor texts. Stu­dents are often hes­i­tant to take risks while learn­ing at school because of fear of fail­ure and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of receiv­ing a poor grade. A mak­er­space area pro­vides stu­dents with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be risk-tak­ers in their edu­ca­tion. A place to think out­side the box with­out fear of fail­ure that results in a neg­a­tive impact on their grades.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Angela Car­pen­ter, Clover Mid­dle School, Clover

Project: “Blue Eagle School Tools”

“Giv­en the appro­pri­ate sup­port, stu­dents with sig­nif­i­cant dis­abil­i­ties will devel­op aca­d­e­m­ic and social skills relat­ed to a work envi­ron­ment. Stu­dents will gain the back­ground knowl­edge and skills to move for­ward to gain­ful employ­ment in the com­mu­ni­ty after leav­ing the school set­ting.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Mol­ly Byrum, Jef­fer­son Ele­men­tary School, York

Project: “Class­room Trans­for­ma­tions”

“Trans­form­ing class­rooms into an engag­ing envi­ron­ment for stu­dents will help stu­dents have an enjoy­able expe­ri­ence at school with learn­ing that is fun and mem­o­rable.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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DeEtte Mann, York Inter­me­di­ate School, York

Project: “Sen­sa­tion­al Sci­ence STEAM Sta­tions.” Project will impact more than 350 5th-grade stu­dents.

“My goal for this project is to have stu­dents gain a deep­er under­stand­ing of sci­ence con­cepts through hands-on learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, engage stu­dents in fun, inter­ac­tive activ­i­ties and inspire stu­dents to think cre­ative­ly. By using these sta­tions as a means of assess­ment, our goal is to have a high­er per­cent­age of stu­dents under­stand and have future inter­est in the con­tent.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Michelle Hub­bard, Clover Mid­dle School, Clover

Project: “Today’s Weather—Live from Clover Mid­dle School.” Stu­dents in 6th grade will learn about weath­er first-hand with an installed weath­er sta­tion at their school.

“Installing a weath­er sta­tion at our mid­dle school, as well as using oth­er hands-on weath­er tools, will help our stu­dents be able to learn across sev­er­al sub­ject mat­ters includ­ing Sci­ence, Lan­guage Arts and Math. Stu­dents will be able to access the infor­ma­tion and take read­ings from our weath­er sta­tion to use to track changes and pre­dict the weath­er, with a year-end goal to cal­cu­late our area’s aver­age cli­mate.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Susan Rodriguez, York One Acad­e­my, York

Project: “Cod­ing for Mid­dle School Stu­dents”

“The goal of cod­ing for stu­dents is to help them to think crit­i­cal­ly, rea­son sys­tem­i­cal­ly, and work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly. Cod­ing also encour­ages cre­ativ­i­ty. The cre­ativ­i­ty devel­oped allows them to cre­ate opti­mal pro­grams and is a path­way to pos­sess­ing many oth­er entre­pre­neur­ial skills. Even if stu­dents do not pur­sue cod­ing as a career, they will enter their cho­sen careers with the abil­i­ty to cre­ate effi­cient process­es, solve com­plex prob­lems log­i­cal­ly and work effec­tive­ly in teams.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Rita Wood­ley, Cot­ton Belt Ele­men­tary School, York

Project: “Bring­ing Sci­ence to Life.” Project will help 3rd-grade stu­dents as they learn sci­ence and social stud­ies.

“My project goals are for stu­dents to have more hands-on expe­ri­ences with our new sci­ence stan­dards. Tying our learn­ing to real-world sit­u­a­tions shows the pur­pose behind learn­ing in school. Last­ly, this project will help build social and team­work skills, and pro­mote inde­pen­dent learn­ing.”

Pho­to cred­it: Erin Pow­ell

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Highlighting young talent, learning with art

Think­ing cre­ative­ly is an impor­tant part of learn­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, expres­sion and strate­giz­ing for the best out­come. At York Elec­tric, we’re proud to sup­port edu­ca­tion and the bright futures of our youngest mem­bers. Show us your cre­ativ­i­ty, best design and bright­est col­ors to help YEC cel­e­brate our com­mu­ni­ty and share the coop­er­a­tive dif­fer­ence.

Vis­it yorkelectric.net/learn-with-art or scan the code to learn more about each com­pe­ti­tion and the prizes. All entries are due by Fri­day, April 7, 2023.

Linework­ers Gear Up for Safe­ty Col­or­ing Con­test for ages 6–7

This will be our 10th year shar­ing the impor­tance of elec­tri­cal safe­ty with our youngest mem­bers through our col­or­ing con­test. Judged by our Linework­ers’ Rodeo Team, the win­ner receives $50!

Co-op Mag­net Design Chal­lenge for ages 11–14

One of the 7 Coop­er­a­tive Prin­ci­pals is Con­cern for Com­mu­ni­ty, which is why empow­er­ing and improv­ing the com­mu­ni­ties we serve remains a top of mind at YEC. Illus­trate a bumper mag­net that show­cas­es this impor­tant mes­sage for a chance to win $100 and have your design on YEC’s fleet for one year.

Coop­er­a­tive Prin­ci­ples Art Com­pe­ti­tion for ages 15–18

Build your resume while help­ing your co-op show­case the coop­er­a­tive dif­fer­ence. Using any medi­um of your choos­ing, cre­ate a work of art that com­mu­ni­cates one of the 7 Coop­er­a­tive Prin­ci­ples and have your work dis­played at our main office for an entire year. The win­ner will be rec­og­nized in our mag­a­zine and win a $300 cash prize.