At the Needham School Committee meeting on February 25, 2025, the Needham Education Foundation (NEF) announced the recipients of three grants totaling $15,069 in its Winter grant cycle.
Awarded grants include:
7th Grade Yoga Integration Experience
A yoga integration experience for 7th grade students at Pollard Middle School to enhance the social studies unit on Ancient India, deepening their understanding of the history, mythology, and purpose of yoga practice. This experience supplements the concepts of mindfulness and meditation as used by Hindus and Buddhists as a religious practice currently being taught as part of the curriculum unit.
— Awarded to Joshua Sanders, 7th Grade Social Studies Teacher
Audiobooks for Broadmeadow Library
A collection of Playaways, or audiobook players, for the Broadmeadow Elementary School community which offers a screen-free, accessible option for all students. Audiobooks help students develop listening comprehension skills, explore texts beyond their reading level, and connect with different cultures or experiences in a meaningful way. These Playaways will be available to the entire Broadmeadow community and also available for inter-library loan to the other Needham school libraries.
— Awarded to Jennifer Potter, Broadmeadow Librarian
Video Games as Literature Course
A full-year, twelfth-grade course for Needham High School students to explore the literary aspects of video games and gaming culture, fulfilling their senior year English requirement. Students will study video games’ potential as a storytelling medium by learning how they function as a literary form, applying traditional literary analysis and critical theories to the stories they tell. Students will read novels related to video games and digital spaces to promote cross-media analysis and synthesis, non-fiction texts that examine the storytelling features of video games and play those games to experience their stories first-hand in a critical, supportive, academic community. Students will also have the opportunity to design games that tell powerful stories. Funds will be used to purchase novels, video games, and consoles for collaborative classroom exploration.
— Awarded to Chris Farnsworth, Needham High School English teacher