The Storm Lake Middle School Project focuses on teaching and learning about the energy needs of the human body, personal caloric benefits of eating natural foods and preparation of food. Four integrated - teaching modules were acquired with Vision 2020 funding. This project's goal is to develop a creative strategy to support a youth entrepreneurship program for children in grades 6-8. The program begins with a residential camp, and then continues through middle school and high school by developing peer groups of young entrepreneurial, mentoring, and support networks. Learning experiences will include campus seminars, industry field trips, work-based learning, demonstrations, applied research, exploration of university and career opportunities, and job shadowing.
Emphasis is placed on implications for biotechnolgy as a career option.
The goal of Project Bio is to develop an infrastructure to support internet courses and other instructional materials that can be shared via the World Wide Web. By providing the hardware and software to all community college campuses to deliver the course material, the technology will be accessible to all biology faculty involved in the partnership and will strengthen ongoing collaborations involving biologists at ISU, community colleges, high schools and industry. As local and area food-industry business contacts are made, the project positions itself to acquire support and possible future funding. This facility will provide students and faculty with practical experience in a number of innovative agro-ecological practices and will simultaneously provide a means to demonstrate new techniques to producers and to the general public. This project is initiating specific strategies to accomplish the transition to a more diversified economy, focusing particularly on alternative crop production and market development.