Franklin Regional Panther Foundation to fund gardens, microscopes, mariachi festival

The latest round of grant funding by the nonprofit Franklin Regional Panther Foundation will help fund a portable podcast studio, a mariachi festival and much more.

Franklin Regional Senior High School teacher Jim Passarelli secured a $9,900 grant that will allow the district to take advantage of a long-abandoned area.

“We had an outdoor space close to 20 years ago, and a former teacher had written up a proposal to do some education programs out there, but it never happened,” Passarelli said.

“I thought it would be great to get a garden, some raised beds and a greenhouse out there and use the little bit of green space that we have in an otherwise paved-over campus.”

Passarelli worked with the high school’s gardening club to help write the grant proposal.

“Our plans are to include all aspects of gardening: raised beds, a greenhouse and some hydroponic growing systems,” he said.

“The kids will have to engineer those, so it’s got some of that STREAM aspect with building the greenhouse and creating the hydroponic system.”

Passarelli also recently earned certification from the Penn State Extension as a master gardener and plans to show students some of what he has learned on topics such as plant propagation and grafting.

“I’m hoping to get some trees and show students how to graft plants and also how to take tomato cuttings and create clones,” he said.

High school science teacher Mark Wolfgang also is looking to up his students’ technology game with a $3,000 grant to obtain digital microscopes.

“Up to this point, we have more of an analog system where kids would look through the microscope, then draw what they saw,” Wolfgang said.

“There’s an element of that which is important, but they also spent a lot of time drawing, rather than examining the actual structure of the object.”

Wolfgang said the microscopes will give students an opportunity to conduct their research “in more of a 21st century way.”

The Panther Foundation last week announced more than $40,000 in innovation grants for 2022. They also include:

• $11,000 to purchase enhanced robotics equipment for a program titled “Code Further,” which will encourage students and teachers to gain a deeper understanding of robotics and how it relates to district curriculum.

• $7,000 for the creation of a custom, licensed Panther mascot, helping the district to market its brand locally and regionally.

• $5,500 to help the National Hispanic Honors Society host a district-wide mariachi festival to promote cultural diversity and global citizenship.

• $1,965 to obtain a portable podcast studio for use by journalism and broadcasting students.

• $1,850 to support a campaign emphasizing what school officials have dubbed the “five C’s”: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and citizenship.