4th Grade Students Crowdfund A Solar-Powered Classroom On Kickstarter

Modern technology opens up so many new doors for teachers to be able to educate children in more fun and inspiring ways. Apple has sold more than 4.5 million iPads to schools in the United States since its launch in 2010. However, using technology in schools goes far beyond just replacing heavy textbooks with iPads. In this example, a fourth grade class used the popular crowdsourcing website Kickstarter to run an enormously successful campaign to crowdfund their own solar-powered classroom.

They will use the knowledge they learned in class to build this themselves. It used to be that people would only try to crowdfund their entrepreneurial endeavors, but lately we are seeing people try to crowdfund just about anything. This example is the best one I’ve read about all week. It all started when the students in this 4th grade class decided they wanted to take their classroom off the grid and make it 100% solar-powered.

Once they decided to try to crowdfund their endeavor, they set out on a mission to create a Kickstarter campaign that people would be inspired to support. You can see the video below that they created. The campaign, called ‘Aaron’s Class,’ was initially set up with a goal to raise $800. They ended up with 201 backers, and they raised $5,817.

Since they were able to raise so much extra money, the 4th grade class has decided to build a bigger system than they originally planned. That way, they will also be able to generate electricity for their community. This is such an inspiring story, and a wonderful use of modern technology in the classroom. You can click over to Kickstarter if you want to see what their campaign looked like. Kudos to the teacher for being so open-minded and letting the kids use their own creativity to turn their dreams into a reality.