Elementary Education Programs
Purdue Extension-Huntington County seeks to provide well-researched,
educational materials that can be utilized within local classrooms. Currently,
we offer a few great programs that meet the core elementary curriculum standards
for Indiana, and we’d love to visit your classroom to help you get started on
them. Check out the programs below to see if any are right for your students!
Chick Embryology
The Chick
Embryology program offered by the Purdue Extension Office allows your students
to walk thought the biological steps of hatching animals. The embryos used in
the classrooms are incubated up to 18 or 19 days, then delivered to the
classroom along with an incubator, so the students can enjoy the final steps of
the development process. In addition, a binder filled with educational
materials is provided to teachers as a tool in guiding classes through the
21-day process of the chick’s growth inside the egg. Students are also taught
the difference between unfertilized, which are found in the store for
consumption, and fertilized eggs, as well as learning the different parts of
the egg and how the maturing embryo is sustained within the cell as it prepares
to hatch.
Professor Popcorn
The Professor Popcorn program seeks to help the youth of
Huntington County develop into healthy adults though the use of experiential
learning. With curriculum developed using MyPlate and the Dietary Guidelines
for Americans, this program places an emphasis on the different elements of a
healthy lifestyle, including how to eat right, using safe food-handling
techniques and incorporating physical activity into the students’ regular
routines. Professor Popcorn was developed for grades K-5, and each level has its
own emphasis. This program uses a mix of games, fun activities, visuals, and
individualized recipes to help students understand the importance of healthy
food and physical choices in their lives.
Ultimately, the Professor Popcorn program seeks to instill a solid
foundation of good habits so students will understand what a healthy lifestyle
is and how to apply it directly to the choices they make every day.
Worms
Though many of us may only consider them fish bait, worms
play a key role in enriching the soil of farmland all over the world. Through a
partnership with local worm farmers, the Extension Office is able to provide a
program in which students examine worms doing what they do best—aerating soil
by burrowing through their habitat and enhancing the quality of the soil with
their waste, also referred to as castings. A simple worm kit, consisting of a
small tub of dirt and worms, is delivered to teachers along with a binder of
materials that covers the worms’ anatomy, diet, reproductive systems and various
educational resources about different types of worms that are both a benefit
and detriment to Indiana farms.
Click here to get this
information in a convenient handout.
For more information on these programs, contact the Extension Office at (260) 358-4826, or email boroff@purdue.edu.