Three Wareham schools are the recipients of four mini-grants recently awarded by Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank aimed at providing additional educational opportunities to students.

On Tuesday, Cape Cod Five hosted its 15th Annual Educational Mini-Grants gathering at Cape Cod Community College. During the event, 89 grants were presented by the Bank’s namesake Foundation to teachers from 43 area schools, including Wareham High School, Wareham Middle School, and the West Wareham Academy.

At Wareham High School, teacher John Flynn was awarded a mini-grant for the Viking Newspaper, and teacher Alfonso Navarro was awarded the mini-grant for his “Build a Gateway to the Universe” project. At the middle school, teacher Harriette Sullivan was given a mini-grant for “differentiated instruction,” and the West Wareham Academy received a grant for their “Healthy Bodies, Healthy Selves” initiative.

Bank President, CEO and Foundation Chair Dorothy A. Savarese said the projects represent “new and innovative ideas – ideas that demonstrate the creativity, energy, and commitment of our teachers both to their students and their profession.”

Teachers use the grants to offer unique educational programs that would otherwise not be available to their students. The projects cover a wide variety of disciplines and they are often highly creative and cross-curricular. Since the Educational Mini-Grants program’s inception in 2000, more than 800 grants totaling nearly $290,000 have been awarded.

Flynn said the grant will be used to print the school's newspaper, which comes out four times a year.

"All other printing costs are covered via advertising we sell or other grants," he said, noting that it costs about $200 to print each paper, and that the school does not contribute to the printing costs.

Navarro said the grant will be used to purchase a series of $25 telescope kits, which students can assemble in under and hour. The telescopes can be taken outside at night to view the moon and its craters, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its rings, and Venus and its phases.

"Many people have taken pictures through these telescopes, and I'm sure the students will be excited to do that as well," said Navarro, adding that the kits can be assembled and reassembled so they can be used multiple times. 

"For lack of a better term, students can 'play' with the optics, and assemble the telescopes in different ways and see how that affects the view they have," he said.

Sullivan said she'd use the money to acquire reading materials for students, including a health magazine put out by Scholastic entitled "Choices."

"I have tried the magazine in the past with a free month's subscription, but was unable to afford the yearly subscription," she said. "The students enjoy reading it and it's a good way for them to stay on top of health topics. It is geared specifically toward middle school students and is quite engaging."