Presents the experiences of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a U.S. Department of Agriculture nonregulatory agency which is responsible for helping farmers, ranchers, and landowners. Discusses the effectiveness of its outreach programs and educational techniques. (YDS)

The Library Outreach Program Committee at Western Washington University serves as a coordinating body for outreach activities to the non-departmental campus community. Successful projects include collaboration with New Student Services/Family Outreach, Academic User Technology Services, and Residential Life. A database of outreach activities…

Public will--which effectively positions libraries as the critical educational, social, cultural, and recreational resource they so clearly are--goes beyond better promotion, clearer communication, or more partnerships to infect the people in a community with the bug to act on their notion that libraries are good and to turn belief into action.…

Fewer employees, shorter hours, diminished collection budgets, reduced programs and services--all at a time of record library usage. In this book, library expert Carol Smallwood demonstrates that despite the obvious downsides, the necessity of doing business differently can be positive, leading to partnering, sharing, and innovating. This…

Treatment Improvement Protocols (TIPs) are developed by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Each TIP involves the development of topic-specific best-practice guidelines for the prevention and…

Over the past decade, three rationales have emerged for emphasizing the reinforcement of the United States' science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline. The first rationale pertains to U.S. global competitiveness, the second revolves around the benefits of a diverse workforce, and the third argument points to social justice…

In July 2006, the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee reported on Special Educational Needs. The report expressed concern over the Government's policy on SEN, especially as it relates to inclusion and to the confusion this has created for special schools. In this article I shall attempt to tease out what I believe to be the…

On paper, Mariella Castillo's family makes her likelier than other students to drop out of college. Her mother left school after the fifth grade, and her father has only a middle-school education. Her parents speak little English, and Castillo, who was born in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, spoke her first words in Spanish. Numerous studies…

This article profiles Mike Simmel, a member of the Harlem Wizards professional basketball team and a national spokesman for Epilepsy Awareness. Mike has been diagnosed with epilepsy when he was two-years-old. At age seven, his father gave him a basketball to see if working with the ball would help him overcome his motor skills issues. Mike first…

The Vanderbilt University Center for Science Outreach (CSO) connects university scientists to the K-12 community to enhance and improve science education. The Virtual Scientist program utilizes interactive videoconference (IVC) to facilitate this connection, providing 40-50 sessions per academic year to a national audience. Scientists, defined as…

The Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute) is a special entity within the National League of Cities (NLC). The YEF Institute helps municipal leaders take action on behalf of the children, youth, and families in their communities. NLC launched the YEF Institute in January 2000 in recognition of the unique and influential…

Science enrichment programmes housed outside traditional school settings can offer students from traditionally under-resourced schools valuable opportunities to access authentic scientific tools and practices. The present study contributes to our understanding of this potential and how it can best be realised through an analysis of the students'…

Universities that lack significant racial or ethnic diversity present challenges to teaching multiculturalism, particularly in linguistics. This article presents ideas from a service-learning curriculum designed to teach university students about diversity through a community-based partnership to provide tutors in English as a second language…

Despite recent progress, college attendance rates of Latino students continue to lag behind those of White students in the United States. Research suggests that outreach programs designed to increase the college knowledge of Latino students and families hold promise for reducing the observed discrepancy. Based on participant observer methods, this…

Research suggested that "nature experience as an education method played a role in developing environmental value and attitudes, and was influential in pro-environmental behaviour." Few of these studies however, assessed the long-term influences of outdoor education experiences on participants' pro-environmental behaviour. The Outward…