Foundation Awards $1.1 Million to Teachers Through Visions for Learning Grants Program

St. Paul, Minn. – Ecolab Inc., the global leader in water, hygiene and energy technologies and services, has awarded $1.1 million in grants to K-12 educators throughout the U.S. through the Ecolab Foundation’s 2016 Visions for Learning Educator Grants program. The Visions for Learning program provides K-12 teachers with funds to purchase equipment and materials to enhance the classroom experience for their students. In 2016, more than 680 grants were provided through the Visions for Learning program, benefitting nearly 340 schools and more than 150,000 students nationwide.

“Ecolab Visions for Learning Educator Grants support the incredible work teachers are doing in their classrooms to augment basic skills instruction,” said Kris Taylor, vice president of Community Relations at Ecolab.  “Teachers submit applications for materials to make their lesson plans more engaging for students, creating richer educational experiences that will better prepare young people for successful futures.”

Since the program began in 1986, more than $13.9 million has been distributed to teachers in classrooms across the U.S.  The 2016 Visions for Learning program included the distribution of $244,000 in grants to educators in St. Paul, Minn., the home of Ecolab’s world headquarters.

Projects funded through this year’s grants include reading materials for Spanish, Native American Culture and English Language Learner classes, supplies for an underwater robotics class, trigonometry surveillance kits, materials for a multicultural poetry publication class, and resources for an elementary school wind column experiment.

The Ecolab Foundation contributes to the quality of life in the communities where the company operates, supporting organizations and programs focused on youth and education, civic and community development, arts and culture, and the environment and conservation. For more information on the Visions for Learning Educator Grants program, visit www.ecolab.com.

Featured

  • University of Kansas Breaks Ground on Entrepreneurship Hub

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new KU Entrepreneurship Hub, according to university news. The Hub is part of the university’s School of Business and will include spaces for experiential learning and programming.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Surging Demand for Student Housing Fuels Major Campus Investment Opportunities

    University leaders throughout the U.S. are accelerating plans to modernize and expand student housing as enrollment stabilizes and demand for on-campus living rebounds. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that total postsecondary enrollment is projected to grow through the end of the decade, with undergraduate enrollment alone expected to increase by more than 8 percent by 2030.

  • abstract illustration of school gym

    How the Gymnasium Can Serve as a Model for Learning Space Design

    Multipurpose gyms work because flexibility was built into the brief from the start, not retrofitted later. The same logic applies to academic spaces.