Updates from the ISU Extension and Outreach leadership team
Human Sciences
- The Financial Literacy Lesson Plans (Grades K-5) curriculum is available for free download from the ISU Extension Store, either by grade level or as an entire K-5 curriculum. The user guide includes the scope and sequence of four lessons for each grade. Each lesson provides an overview of the agenda, purpose, objectives, needed preparation, vocabulary and standard(s) being addressed. There are directions for the lesson warm-up, main activity, wrap-up and reflection; ideas for extending the lesson; and home talk with parents or guardians. Worksheets and graphics are included, and most lessons feature reading and discussion of a storybook as the main activity. Support from the Iowa Insurance Division made the project possible.
- In “A Journey Through Parkinson’s Disease,” participants learn how to recognize the symptoms of PD; how to seek medical care and what to expect; the causes of PD; how treatments work; alternative therapies, such as singing and exercise; and simple at-home activities and tools to help with symptoms. Sessions are held once a week for three weeks with each session lasting 45 minutes. Program authors Elizabeth Stegemӧller and David Brown trained facilitators in August 2018. After some time spent developing partnerships, planning and marketing, the facilitators are now implementing the program. Sessions have been held in Keosauqua, Cherokee and Sioux City, and with extension county partners, Siouxland Aging Coalition members, Dickinson County with the local YMCA and in Chickasaw County with Mercy Hospital in New Hampton.
- The Sioux County PROSPER Team, in conjunction with West Sioux Schools and Hawarden community leaders, created Hawarden Table Talks to increase engagement of community businesses and citizens with the issue of youth risk-taking behaviors. Conversations focused on supporting youth and encouraging their families to engage in the community. Over the last several months, more community leaders have joined the conversation, increasing the capacity of the group and resulting in an investigation of transitioning to a community coalition. Leaders of the Table Talks recognize that creating opportunities that encourage building relationships with youth and adults from all cultures will benefit the overall workforce development of Hawarden.
- Plan, Shop, Save, and Cook is a four-lesson series on basic nutrition, meal planning, saving money and cooking skills. It takes roughly four hours to deliver and is appropriate for a wide variety of participants. The SNAP-Ed funded staff are learning and practicing the lessons with anticipated implementation in late April or May.
4-H Youth Development
- Maya Hayslett, 4-H crop science specialist, has been training teen leaders for the Native Bee Challenge. This statewide program includes hands-on activities facilitated by teen leaders in many locations across the state. In March, 18 youth and 10 adult staff and volunteers attended the state training at Reiman Gardens to learn about the program’s educational activities and how to lead the challenge. Each youth will share the program with 50 youth in grades 4-8 in their home communities.
- H2Oh! Is a new program on well water safety being piloted in Story, Tama and Jefferson counties. The feedback from the pilots will be used to revise the program, which will then be available for all counties to use. Results also will be presented at the Iowa Governors Conference on Public Health in April.
- Thirty-nine SWITCH schools have wrapped up nine weeks of program implementation focusing on how their students can “switch what they do, view and chew.” Students are tracking their health behaviors each week in their web-based accounts. Middle school students are challenged to establish a goal that they actively work toward and document the following week. 4-H has been seeing great outcomes from schools’ special projects to enhance wellness in their school, activating their lessons and incorporating more movement while learning. Schools are now helping to design a sensory walkway that can be incorporated in school hallways to encourage sensory-based movement to release energy, boost brain function and create focus upon entry to the classroom. As SWITCH wraps up for this year, 4-H is preparing to recruit for the 2019-2020 school year.
Agriculture and Natural Resources
- Prices for performing custom work are expected to jump in 2019, according to the 2019 Custom Rate Survey. The survey showed a 7% price increase across all surveyed categories. Changes from 2018 to 2019 varied across categories, with complete harvesting and hauling for corn and soybeans increasing by 6% and hired labor going up 7%. The full survey is available through Ag Decision Maker or the ISU Extension Store and was conducted by Alejandro Plastina, assistant professor and extension economist.
- Registration for the ISU Extension and Outreach Master Gardener program is now available online. Classes will be held across the state this fall; contact your ISU Extension and Outreach county office for training locations and start dates. After completing the course, Master Gardener trainees volunteer within the community, volunteering 40 hours. To maintain Master Gardener volunteer status, they volunteer 20 hours per year and build their gardening know-how by participating in 10 hours of continuing education.
- Adam Janke’s Woodworking for Wildlife publications highlight simple projects that can enhance habitat for animals in a backyard. Three publications provide detailed instructions and a materials list for creating a backyard bat box, blue bird box, and wood duck box. Janke, assistant professor and extension wildlife specialist, also includes basic information about the animals each project is designed to attract. A fourth publication provides instructions and a materials list to build the iconic Aldo Leopold bench.
Community and Economic Development
- Iowa Retail Initiative provides the foundation for local retail decision makers to assess and work to address their community’s existing and future retail districts. IRI has recently gone through an update or “reboot” into a comprehensive approach that includes a three-part, nested program — consisting of IRI Champions, IRI Coaching and IRI Snapshot — to enhance and strengthen local retail. The first step in the program is the IRI Champions workshop, which provides training and resources to community decision makers and retail supporters, such as chambers of commerce and economic development organizations. During the day-long workshop, participants will learn how they can assess existing and future retail needs, evaluate their retail district amenities, identify funding opportunities, maximize the use of social media, and explore retail niches. CED specialists Steve Adams, Lisa Bates, Susan Erickson, and Victor Oyervides piloted IRI Champions in Wright County on April 2.
- CED is now offering data literacy workshops to help Iowans learn the skills needed to understand, visualize, interpret and practice with data relevant to communities, organizations and counties. The data literacy workshops can include a wide variety of topics, reviews of the data included in the Data for Decision Makers profiles, or an in-depth look at selected measures, indicators, and trends. The workshops also can provide participants with knowledge and skills to discuss data and bridge to applications and decision making with the data. Sandra Burke will be conducting two health data literacy workshops in Muscatine on April 26.
- Diane Van Wyngarden, Himar Hernández, Jane Goeken, Abigail Gaffey, Steve Adams and Victor Oyervides received a Herb Howell Creative and Innovative Program Grant to develop a new Iowa tourism guide program curriculum. A statewide guide training workshop will be held at the Central Iowa Expo in Boone April 11. The workshop is designed specifically for staff and volunteers who lead guided programs at Iowa’s community tourism attractions, including but not limited to museums, parks and conservation areas, historic sites, science centers and agritourism.
- The Introduction to Planning and Zoning for Local Officials workshop is a three-hour session designed to introduce the basic principles of land use planning and development management to elected officials, planning and zoning officials, and board of adjustment members without formal training in the subjects. During April, workshops will be conducted in Fort Dodge, Waterloo, Johnston and Council Bluffs.
- The 2019 Community Visioning Program continues with community assessment work in April, including the final transportation assets and barriers focus group workshop in Coggon; a bioregional assessment in Durant; transportation inventory and analyses in Sumner, Durant and Walcott; and a review of all community assessments in Sumner.