Resource Area for Teaching

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The RAFT Sobrato Center warehouse, located in Sunnyvale, California. Resource area for teaching warehouse.jpg
The RAFT Sobrato Center warehouse, located in Sunnyvale, California.

Resource Area For Teaching (RAFT) is a nonprofit (501c3) that is pursuing an alternative approach to education. It has been the subject of studies from the Stanford University School of Business, KPMG and Deloitte.[ citation needed ] It partners with the San Francisco Exploratorium in developing hands-on demonstrations and activities. [ citation needed ] While the Exploratorium tends to focus on Science-related activities, RAFT keeps its focus on classroom pursuits of a wider subject area, including Science, Mathematics, Art, and Literature.

RAFT has three principal social and pedagogical themes:

RAFT has retail locations in San Jose, Redwood City and Sacramento, California as well as Denver, Colorado and serves 10,000 teacher members at the four sites.[ citation needed ]. It also operates a warehouse and volunteer center in Sunnyvale, California. The organization operates on a $4 million annual budget, which is used to operate programs and subsidize material purchases and teacher-training workshops.[ citation needed ] Funding is provided by a mix of foundation, corporate and personal donations.

In 2012, the organization launched an eCommerce website where teacher classroom kits may be purchased online.

In 2013, a joint venture with Scholastic began distribution of RAFT-designed kits through the retail stores that carry Scholastic products.

The operation includes several divisions:

Founding

RAFT was founded in 1994 by Mary F. Simon

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