The Inetta Fund was established to support STEM education in underserved, mostly rural areas for grades 6 through 12, in instructor led teams. Currently we are supporting projects at both Robert Brown Middle School (RBMS) and Green County High School (GCHS) in Eutaw, Alabama. We will be providing support to other underserved school systems as our resources permit.
Our current project is called Internet In A Flash (IIAF). This project is designed to help rural student who do not have access to the Internet from home. This project is designed to help close the 'Homework gap' by providing content from sites like Khan Academy and Wikipedia on a USB 3 Flash drive. For convenience in helping students to prepare their homework, the Apache Open Office Suite of applications have also been included.
This project is being developed using an Open source version of Khan Academy's content. When complete IIAF will provide a capability similar to that provided by Encyclopedia Britannica in an earlier era, only in a portable digital format containing the information students need to study selected STEM subjects at home. IIAF provides this information on portable electronic media that can be taken with the student and used anywhere she or he has access to a computer running Windows 7 or later equipped with a USB port.
If you would like to obtain one of our IIAF drives for your own use, please email The inetta Fund or contact us with your request.
This is an ongoing development effort and we would greatly appreciate any Donations you make to help us complete it.
Our first project was with the RBMS Lab, where we donated a Compound Digital Zoom Microscope (40–2500X) and a Digital Stereo Microscope. These microscopes were equipped with 40X-2500X 1080p HDMI Camera and software which allowed full live viewing and color capture. We provided a HP Z1 wide screen computer for use with the digital camera.
There were 200 prepared slides and 200 blank slides, and a slide preparation kit included with this to allow students to prepare their own slide form specimens they collect.
Our second contribution to RBMS was a 10-student 3D Virtual Reality (VR) Google Expedition Kit with fully immerse video content. This Virtual Reality Kit came equipped with over 800 VR immersive lessons. We also obtained the ability to use Tyler DeWitt’s Cellscape VR Biology. These allow an instructor led 3D tour of the inside of cells. You can students at the Robert Brown Middle School using the VR kit to explore classroom meaterial in 3D.
A third and ongoing effort is to assist the County and the Board of Education in identifying resources for bring broadband Internet service to rural areas of the county. Today most of the county still access the Internet using dial-up modems. These are much too slow to allow the rich content on the web to be streamed to students for study at home. Our plans are to assist in developing strategies and helping to identify funding sources, including government grants and loans for county wide broadband.
For High School students, our plans are to support computer hardware training using Raspberry Pi kits, software development in a variety of programming languages, and familiarity with Microsoft Office suite of software. Other equipment for a variety of STEM related educational materials and projects will be considered as instructors propose projects that they are willing to lead.
These may be in any STEM subject, including: Biology, chemistry and physics labs, software, databases, magazines, DVD, web-based services, Virtual/Augmented reality, Three Dimension (3D) Printing, guest lecturers, and field trips.