Gifted program receives $28,000 grant

Demopolis will enter the classroom for gifted students, thanks to a $28,000 Alabama State Department grant.

Written by the gifted program’s teacher Dana Hill, the $28,000.00 grant from the Alabama State Department of Education will support place-based education in Demopolis and the surrounding areas. 

Titled “The Town Becomes the Classroom,” the grant is designed to explore and appreciate the history and resources of Demopolis for students who have been identified as gifted attending U.S. Jones Elementary and Demopolis Middle Schools.

“Through this grant the students will learn spirally by taking the classroom into the community and bringing the community into the classroom,” said Hill.

Students will learn from local experts, such as historians, genealogists, artists, engineers, chemists, entrepreneurs and wild life professionals. 

Place-based activities will include walking tours of downtown Demopolis, testing of local waters for invasive fish species, tours of Foscue Park, tours of various historic homes and Rooster Hall and water safety and swimming lessons. 

In the classroom and on campus, students will build a school garden and pond while studying the habitat of birds, fish, plants and other wildlife, make maps of the Tombigbee River and city streets, use a kiln to create French pottery representing the heritage of north Marengo County, and design paper-mache scale models of the downtown district.

Demopolis is one of 29 school systems that received this state grant which totaled nearly $750,000 and was authorized under Alabama Act No. 2019-403.