Background: As the obesity epidemic expands to include younger Americans, there is greater need to understand youth experiences and to identify innovative strategies to promote physical activity in children and adolescents. Connecting children and families with nature-based activities is an example of a strategy that may promote physical activity…

The author reports on Ohio's bevy of education initiatives that take aim at helping African-American male students succeed. The Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center for the African American Male at The Ohio State University is one of several initiatives that help African-American men succeed in Ohio. All the programs focus on individual…

An approach to remedy the scarcity of Black students within the sciences at southern African universities has been the development of access programmes. There has been little acknowledgement of the contribution of these access programmes in increasing the quantity and quality of graduates. The contribution made by the Science Foundation Programme…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Mission Accomplished! The Development of a Competence-based E-portfolio Assessment Model (Shelley Schuurman, Scott Berlin, Jamie Langlois, and Julie Guevara); (2) The Third Rail of Assessment--Dangerous but Powerful (Dale L. Mort); (3) Video Killed the Radio…

This paper describes a workshop led by female Engineering Technology students, with support from female faculty, to provide an introduction to Engineering Technology to 4th-7th grade girls through a series of interactive laboratory experiments. This outreach program was developed to improve attitudes towards science and engineering in middle…

The percentage of K-12 children from homes where a language other than English is spoken has doubled in the last 30 years, and the language minority population will soon outnumber English speakers in many major cities in the United States. With this shift in the population, cultural proficiency in America's schools is of great importance. The…

Increased student access to higher education institutions has been associated with the recent proliferation of higher education opportunities throughout the world. Various countries have undertaken numerous initiatives to increase access, such as the Netherlands with its involvement in the Bologna Process and the United States with Achieve Inc.'s…

For nearly 20 years, the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program (CTSG) has worked to foster the wise use and conservation of coastal and marine resources of the Long Island Sound (LIS) estuary, as well as working regionally, nationally and globally. The strategy for success of any individual Sea Grant College Program must be consistent with the…

Interested in bringing the benefits of the arts as integral to quality education for all children, in 2004 the Ford Foundation launched the National Arts Education Initiative, a seven-year demonstration in nine communities across the United States. Building from arts education programs that serve "pockets" of children, Ford investments…

This article describes the outcomes of field-based efforts to increase diversity in agricultural education programs and the FFA. This study focused on three schools in San Antonio, Texas. Guided by Rogers' (2003) theories of diffusion of innovations, a series of six intervention strategies was implemented: (a) provide specific FFA or agricultural…

This article introduces the use of the labyrinth as one systemic approach counseling centers can use when conducting outreach targeting the college community. The author discusses the labyrinth's history and its recent resurgence in professional settings, summarizes the principles of walking the labyrinth, illustrates its introduction on one…

This article discusses the context in which rural community colleges seek to serve diverse constituencies of adult learners. A variety of innovative approaches to serving diverse adult learners are being undertaken by New Mexico State University at Grants, a two-year college in the New Mexico State University system serving a culturally diverse…

This paper focuses on approaches by non-government organisations (NGOs) to reach primary school-aged children excluded from access to the conventional state education system. It highlights recent shifts in international literature and agency priorities from the portrayal of NGO provision as a (non-formal) "alternative" to (formal) state…

This study examines the recruitment of women into a heavily male dominated field of study, in this case mechanical engineering. Qualitative data, in the form of interviews and focus groups, were gathered from six undergraduate mechanical engineering programs that enroll and graduate a relatively high proportion of women. Results revealed that (1)…

This review traces the evolution from 1971 to the present of a national technical assistance (TA) program to support the creation, expansion, and improvement of services for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with special needs. From its beginning as a TA resource for demonstration projects, to linking outreach projects' expertise with state…