Today in Education Counts Michiana Girls and Women in Science at River St Joe Early Learning Center at Hubbard Hill Discovery Academy in Berrien Springs.

Hustle SBE for Business Growth Education Council Michiana is underwritten by Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Investing in Education and Economic Development for centuries, supporting the past, current and future development of the Michiana region.

Community Foundation of Elkhart County inspire good.

Kosciusko County Community Foundation where donor dreams shine.

The Dekko Foundation.

Community Foundation of Saint Joseph County Crossroads United Way serving Elkhart, Lagrange and Noble Counties United Way of Saint Joseph County Marshall County Community Foundation.

Ready to Grow.

Saint Joe Early Childhood Coalition and a Gift by Elmer and Dolores Tepe.

Thank you.

Welcome to Education Counts Michiana.

I'm your host, Sam Centellas.

Education Counts highlights programs and initiatives that are impacting how we teach, how we learn, and how we embrace education.

This program explores ideas in all education sectors.

Preschool through lifelong learning, K-12, post-high school and job advancement.

Training with the philosophy that we should never stop seeking knowledge.

Find additional resources at WNIT.org and on the Education Counts Facebook page.

First up, STEM careers.

River Saint Joe, a michigan based farm to table restaurant in Buchanan and Fernwood Botanical Garden in Niles, have teamed up to promote women and girls pursuing careers in the sciences.

Both organizations emphasize the importance of exposing girls at a young age to areas of STEM and encourage them to not be limited.

Introducing girls to successful and empowering female role models is the first step.

Segment produced by Shanthini Ode.

Females are poised in a really interesting way to save the environment.

Women are usually the caretakers of the home, and they're also caretakers of the environment.

And a lot of women are mothers.

And I think there's a big connection between Mother Earth and females.

And any time you can empower more females to help save the planet and be environmentally friendly, I think you're really going to move that climate change discussion forward.

Being a women owned farm here and brewery, we're very interested in promoting events towards women, right, as well as things that are environmentally conscious.

River Saint Joe rests on 180 acre certified organic farm.

Right now, we mostly produce small vegetables and we're working on incorporating fruits and down the line.

We'd love to be involved in some degree with animal products as well.

We like to think of it as giving people a taste of Southwest Michigan in its purest form.

And it's all happening right here on the farm.

So today we've got some awesome volunteers from the local area.

The teacher from the Buchanan schools is here with microscopes looking at slides, different beneficial insects that work with the environment and with the farm to help natural production of crops as well.

We also have a couple of other other volunteers just answering questions about careers in science, if people are interested.

If you can expose a young group of students to this idea that the climate is changing and that the environment needs attention, that's my job, is to bring the students to the real world problems that they can come up with the solutions for the future.

When I selected the students for today's event, it immediately ignited a passion in them.

They wanted to do their best work and they wanted to know what they were doing and how they would do it.

This is the fifth year that Fernwood has celebrated the international the United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

It's really important to our mission.

I'm just educating the public, and it's kind of special because Fernwood, as founder, was a woman, Kay Boylston, she was an amazing gardener and artist.

And she was always about, you know, inviting people from the community to just enjoy the natural surroundings here.

I really think it's important for young people to make connections with the natural world, and it seems like more and more they have less opportunity to do that.

We had some kids come for a field trip not too long ago, and there was a little boy that said he had never been in a forest, a real forest before.

And so it was this kind of magical thing to have him out here for the first time experiencing nature in such a positive way and learning and just getting inspired to come back or maybe, you know, take more notice of the nature that's around him wherever he lives.

It's all about environment, right?

Not just the environment you live in, but the environment and care that surrounds you.

There's this history of women kind of being pushed out of those areas of study.

The women that made it through throughout history have achieved these amazing, amazing things, you know, have these amazing discoveries.

So I think it's just encouraging to show kids examples of what they can do and what they can be.

We love to teach people about the ways that we do sustainable efforts and try and encourage them to do the same at home.

And I think it's one of our missions to continue to do educational outreach as often as we can to involve people in that mission.

You can keep trying if you're interested in something and you kind of persevere and you can really do anything and study what you love in telling women and girls, especially from a young age, that they are capable and strong and smart as so many impacts beyond just making them feel good.

It empowers them to choose careers or to become interested in things that otherwise maybe they wouldn't be and we we're very excited to be a part of that and to encourage that on our own.

Learn more at WNIT.org.

Bridging the Divide.

The Early Learning Center at Hubbard Hill in Elkhart will become an intergenerational learning center.

The benefits of intergenerational programing for children is evident as they experience enhanced learning, social development and changing perceptions of older adults.

Older adults and residents experienced physical, mental and emotional health benefits and enrichment.

Mutual Learning.

Mutual Benefit.

Kristen Franklin.

Videographer Greg Banks Editor.

It turns out that no matter how old you are, it's all about relationships and people are starved and hungry for that.

And so making environments that are conducive to having those kind of interactions so that and what we've experienced is that kids sometimes bring their parents and say, why don't we going to Hubbard next, right?

it's pretty miraculous what's happening here today, not just the project, but the fact that we're here two years after becoming deciding to head down this path of building the Early Learning Center.

Thank you, Christine.

We're very excited to bring the early learning Center, which is currently housed over at Granger Community Church over to our new home here at Hubbard Hill.

We are excited to be a part of a new community and new over here in Elkhart County, and we can't wait to bring the new intergenerational piece as well to kind of not only enrich our community, but develop lots of relationships with across the generations.

Everyone who's in senior care knows that the needs of seniors are the same as every human being at every age level.

And that's the connection and relationship.

And there's something with seniors in particular here where there's a desire to have value to the next generation to to pass on their legacy, if you will, and their wisdom, their life experiences and understanding that that helps build a foundation for that child to live a more vibrant life, maybe to sometimes avoid the mistakes they made.

But mostly it's to have the nurturing, caring environment that's safe and warm and that that everyone knows every child needs.

And so being a part of that is incredibly valuable to seniors.

I think this program has been really well run for many years, and they use a really well evidence based curriculum.

And the teachers are well trained.

And I think having this brand new space for them to operate out of has got to be very exciting for the teachers.

I know that the hands on approach they use in the high school high school curriculum that they use is very engaging for children and I'm sure having this new space that's designed specifically for a child care space has got to be very exciting for them.

We have infant care and toddler care, which is an addition over the current school.

So there's all kinds of benefits for this on all from all perspectives.

And we have some of the relationships will be intentional and some of the residents who are here and have been retired or retired teachers or retired from the education field, but our team is excited to be able to to welcome some of them into our classroom on a regular basis.

And they will be a part of our actual classroom community and and that team and they'll be able to come over maybe once the first Tuesday of every month and actually spend the day in that classroom.

And so most of that will happen here in this school and there'll be some opportunity for the kids to come up to HUBBARD And, you know, one of the most popular active these long, you know, historically has been Halloween.

So we know that it just takes that that intimate interaction with a senior placing a piece of candy and in the bucket or a bag of a child and having that response of joy, you know, it doesn't take a lot to absolutely change the lives of both right there.

So part of it is that they would be comfortable one with another.

We've been working with a gentleman called Dr. Mat Kaplan from Penn State University.

He's an intergenerational person guru, I would say, in that industry.

And he's training us in how to appropriately create the interactions between the older generation and the residents here, and then our young students that will be here at the ELC.

And from what we've been, we've learned and we've met a lot of the residents and they are very excited for these opportunities.

So we do a lot and have done historically a lot of intergenerational activities.

But this takes us to a whole another level where they could be intimately involved with children at this incredible, delicate developmental stage.

Every day, easily before that, we bussing kids in and in relationships with schools.

And it's been beautiful, but this changes the whole campus.

The we use the high school curriculum here at the school, and it's a play based program, but everything is provided for.

The children and done throughout the day is very intentional on behalf of the of the child and their interests in the classroom.

It is very authentic.

We don't do a lot of assessments on the children.

It's we do anecdotal notes, which is what allows us to capture those authentic moments.

And then we share the notes that we capture and the activities that are happening in the classroom with the families so that they can see all of the things that their child has accomplished and done throughout that particular week.

We also play outside for an hour every day, and that's we consider the outdoors and an extension of the classroom.

And so it's going to be a natural playground brought indoors because we live in Indiana and we unfortunately aren't able to go outside as much as we would like to based on temperatures and the weather that we have in the middle, you see the high ceilings.

There's going to be a giant treehouse with ramps that go up to it safely.

But we already designed the building so that we can easily add more classrooms because we know that this is not even close to meeting the need in the community.

We're making a dent.

We're happy to be part of that.

So seniors win, the community wins, the families, our staff wins the community who are working parents and looking for high quality accredited facility.

Find out more about all these segments at WNIT.org.

a different approach to learning known for its opportunities for a second chance.

Berrien Springs Discovery Academy is an alternative education high school for students through unique programs such as job genius and math prisms.

A virtual reality math class students find themselves excelling in this go at your own pace.

Environment Segment producer Shanthini Ode.

Discovery Academy is an alternative ed program that serves at risk teens.

But we've also expanded.

We also serve kids where the traditional high school doesn't really fit their plans for the future.

So we have some accelerated kids that want to graduate sooner.

We have kids that have dropped out and have come back to school to get their diplomas.

So we kind of serve a variety of kids, all from the county.

We're known as the district of second chances here at the Discovery Academy.

We give them the opportunity to graduate, get their diploma and move forward with their life while actually helping them with maintaining their life schedule.

One of the biggest things that we find is that we have to fix what's up here and here before we expect them to actually learn what's on the computer.

I try to go to the high school, but I think I have really bad grades or something.

And so they brought me over here and it really helped.

It really brought me to where I needed to be.

But the thing I find most satisfying is that the fact that you could do your work at your own pace and you could do it whenever you want to, whenever you want to, and however you want to do it.

So, you know, I do my work on the weekends sometimes, you know, just to get step ahead a lot of the students who come into the discovery have pretty much given up and they've been told or they just feel like I can't achieve, I can't do it.

At the Discovery Academy, they learn at their own pace.

So if they want to review something, they can go back and review it.

And once they start to see the success, they understand that they're able to do it, that they can do it, that they can achieve, and things are possible for them.

And that's our entire goal is is to make sure that they're given that opportunity to succeed.

Whereas at the high school, it was like like my grades was like, not that good is like my mom.

So, you know, you should come here that way you can work at your own pace.

And like, I like it here because like I do better here than I did at the high school.

We also have some other programs, career programs like Job Genius, where we teach kids how to get employability skills, interview resumes, and what jobs does is it create an opportunity for students to actually pursue their their goals and their dreams.

So we actually work with 12th graders that's on the verge of either graduating that spring or graduating the next fall.

And we want to create opportunities for them to easily transition from high school to post-graduation, seeing their confidence being built each and every time they enter into the Job Genius program.

I take it to heart to make sure I give back to my local community, you know, develop these students.

So that way they have somebody positive to look out to.

They have somebody that's already been through the next level of life that they're trying to achieve or to accomplish.

And, you know, to have somebody come back, it means a lot to these students.

We also have a math program that we just started this year called Prisms.

It's a VR math program.

So a lot of times our kids come to us and they're either one, two, sometimes three grade levels behind in math.

So the traditional teaching way didn't work.

Our way of just online screen going at their own pace, still a trouble.

Well, now they can actually touch and feel and move math.

So we're is the first year doing it.

We're doing a pilot right now.

So we'll find out if that will help.

And we really hope that'll help our kids increase their grade level, increase their grades and test scores.

I'm excited for the future that this is going to provide me and what I want to do here at the Discovery Academy.

We want a well-rounded student that is actually going to be able to compete and function in today's society.

In the workforce, I'm probably going to go into trades, welding, carpentry, something along those lines of I want to do nursing, you know, phlebotomy specifically.

I think, you know, it helps me like discovery helps me like, you know, interact and I know I can like take my time and stuff like that.

So, you know, we try to build their relationship outside of just doing this program.

So, you know, we we have a very solid relationship.

And when you create those relationships, you create those that passion, you know, that feeling that, you know, they may have never, ever received before all the teachers and everybody that was supporting me while I was here, even though I'm a fourth year student, I never got treated differently.

I love discovery.

We don't put any limits on what our kids can do.

They've had enough limits put on them by this life.

So when they come here, we just try to give them all the positive feedback we can and let them grow at their own pace.

Learn more about the benefits of alternative high schools at WNYC dot org business Mentorship Hustle Sbe is a program for minority and female business owners who've been in business at least one year.

The educational program helps students focus on exploring new solutions for their customers, generate new ideas and streamline business practices to create a solid foundation for continued growth and expansion.

Christine Franklin Videographer.

Greg Banks Editor.

Because when we talked about why are women and minority individuals not elevated, why are we not seeing more businesses?

Why are we not seeing more people?

C-Suites What we came up with was they don't have the right connections.

And how do we make sure they have the right connections?

I graduated today from Hustle SBE here in Granger, Indiana.

It's an entrepreneur workshop to help give us the tools and resources to be better entrepreneurs.

That means this.

We want all of you to thrive and prosper and stop in Elkhart region, in your businesses to thrive.

We want your employees to thrive.

And we want this to be a great place to live, work and play.

So that is what we're focused on as an organization I think we have agreements.

Okay, so this is for a program that's a business boot camp.

It's called Hustle SBE And it was started for businesses that are in their second or third year of business.

They're not startups, but they've honed their hustle.

They know what they're doing.

But we want to make sure that women and minority businesses were able to understand how to run a solid business.

So that's what we've spent the last eight weeks on, is helping them get skills around all the other areas of running a solid business.

Black owned Dell Star VR.

We are a virtual reality provider, so right now we provide our main focus right now is on gaming, but as an alternative virtual reality provider, we plan on having content to help people, you know, dealing with mental health issues, to help people with disabilities like autism, education and things like that.

I own Miss Hunnies cleaning service here in Elkhart.

But I do serve the Michiana area and we specialize in residential cleaning and commercial cleaning.

So what we've done is we have had eight weeks of curriculum.

They included everything from introducing them to CPAs and understanding how to read SNL statements and balance sheets and things like that.

They met with attorneys and they met with marketing professionals and all the different things that are needed to grow and sustain a business.

So even around financial planning, even though they're at the beginning of their journey on business, we worked on different things that they could do.

The typically small businesses look away from that are scary for them.

We really wanted them to focus on some of those areas so that they would have a community, they would know who to contact and they'd have some general information around those areas.

One of the things that we learned was identify our own strengths and weaknesses.

So for me, I learned that, you know, I'm a real like a strategist type of person.

I'm a relation builder, which kind of helped with the whole process because in this cohort, you know, one of the main things that I kind of took away was the ability to network.

So networking was one of the major things.

How to hire employees, when to hire employees, how to find the right candidates, to hire things like that.

So it's a great resource.

The class was awesome.

The class was awesome.

And what I learned from hustle is to hustle harder, to hustle harder, but hustle smarter.

And what that means is with all the resources they gave us on today, to use those resources to hustle smarter, to make better decisions concerning our business so we won't end up falling in four or five years.

You know, what we know is 90% of startups fail in the first year, 70% more fail in years, 2 to 5.

What I would like for these businesses, because these are, you know, Main Street businesses, these are local businesses by local people who are going to feed back to our region.

We want to make sure that they're sustainable from not only today, but five years and beyond.

Well, is it?

I do.

And then the owner of minority owned business.

This marks my 27th year and Temperance is actually the second largest minority owned business in the state of Indiana.

I recall back when I was getting started, there were some mentors of mine that were also owners of minority owned companies that really brought me in.

They help me with strategy, they help with business planning.

They also helped me a lot with connections being an entrepreneur is a lonely road, right?

So it is important to find like, like minded people like yourself that have a passion for what you do or even now for what you do just in that space.

So being in these type of environments allows you to network and find people and solve problems because you might have an issue that you don't know how to resolve, but you've got somebody that's in the same space with you be an entrepreneur and they can kind of give you some some feedback.

I would definitely say to come and participate in this program because first of all, we don't know everything as business owners like we think we do.

And once you come here, you learn a lot of different things from different speakers and just what the different the things that the teacher taught us.

I had to unlearn a lot of stuff that I thought I knew.

And so everything was downloaded into me, was fresh and new.

So now I'm able to go out into the world and do what I was taught from Hustle.

Check out WNIT.org for information on all these stories.

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The success of every student matters.

Education Counts Michiana is underwritten by Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Investing in Education and Economy, Act development for centuries, supporting the past, current and future development of the Michiana region community foundation of Elkhart County Inspire Good.

Kosciusko Community Foundation Where Donor Dreams Shine.

The Dekko Foundation Community Foundation of Saint Joseph County Crossroads United Way serving Elkhart, Lagrange and Noble Counties United Way of Saint Joseph County Marshall County Community Foundation.

Ready to Grow.

Saint Joe Early Childhood Coalition.

And A Gift by Elmer and Dolores Tepe.

Thank you.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

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