(light music) >> Melinda: It's not only about running, it's about learning different ways to empower girls, deal with different situations in everyday life.

>> It's really fun, and you can meet other people and make new friends.

(people shouting indistinctly) >> James: Seeing them grow into martial arts from somebody that was shy, that got all this confidence, and then later on in life they're succeeding beyond, you know, whatever I thought they could, that's really been my passion.

>> Jaime: So with place-based education, we take students out into either the national park out on trail or into the community, and we are able to connect their curriculum to hands-on learning in those specific locations.

>> Jackie: And we do have quite a few 45-year-olds that raced back in the day, or their children are now racing and they wanna give it a try.

>> Kevin: I started racing when I was about 11-years-old, and we helped out at the track all the time volunteering here.

It's a very competitive sport, but it's also a very fun sport.

His best friend races his same age group and they'll play all the time, and then they go out there and race each other as hard as they can.

So they learn sportsmanship, and cheer for each other when they're on the track.

(light music) >> Announcer 1: Centier Bank is proud to serve hometown community banking across Indiana.

For over 128 years, Indiana's largest private family owned bank has been not for sale and promises to keep it that way for years to come.

(soft music) >> Announcer 2: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

(upbeat music) >> I have a very strong connection to other students.

Everyone makes an effort to help each other.

I'll remember the feeling of being here, the feeling that I was a part of a family.

>> Announcer 3: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, LaPorte, and Valparaiso.

New classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech, higher education at the speed of life.

To get started, visit IvyTech.edu.

(upbeat music) The Crossroads Chamber is transforming northwest Indiana's business landscape, one connection at a time.

Experience the power of networking within our diverse community, and forge lasting relationships that can drive your business forward.

(light music) Additional support for Lakeshore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you, thank you.

(soft music) >> Melinda: It's not only about running, it's about learning different ways to empower girls, different ways to deal with different situations in everyday life.

They get to spend an hour-and-a-half with some friends and we get to have good conversations.

(people shouting indistinctly) >> The lessons we learned was like how to treat others like the way you wanna be treated.

>> Some of them are from fifth grade so I know them a lot, but the fourth graders, I've really interacted with them.

>> Finally got it.

>> It's been a really good time getting to know them and their personalities and stuff, I like it.

(people talking indistinctly) (soft music continues) >> Anna.

We focus a lot on the curriculums, the five C's plus one, confidence, character, care, connecting with others, competence, and contribution.

It's our safe space so to say.

So in a big classroom, if these topics came up, it's harder to speak in front of a lot of different peers.

Here it's safe because they're able to talk and we say that everybody has a voice, and it doesn't matter if we don't agree.

They're really good with each other, and if they see somebody feeling down then they're right there to encourage them.

I see the compassion with a lot of 'em.

It empowers them to try new things and to speak up for themselves.

(children clapping and cheering) >> Miss Quasney, she's a great person, I feel comfortable around them.

Miss Slusher, she's really nice.

It's a great thing that I have coaches here that like to support you.

Ms. McKibbon, she's a great person.

All of them are lovely so yeah.

When I'm like kind of struggling they kinda like cheer me on.

They help me get through around the school, help me be a better person, and learn responsibility.

(soft music) >> We talk about a lot about star power.

When you activate your star, it means that you are feeling really good about yourself.

And we tell the girls that if they sometimes see somebody down, you might wanna try to activate their star.

A gentle "Hi, how are you doing?"

Or give them a hug, or a high five, or, "Hey you're looking good today."

Activating other people's stars just by being nicer to other people.

This morning I said, "Hey, I need my star activated, "I'm kind of feeling down this morning 'cause I'm so tired."

So one of the girls hugged me and she said, "I'm activating your star."

(Melinda laughs) And of course it does make you feel better.

(people talking indistinctly) Alexa, I see her always just wanting to help others.

She's always been that type of person though, so I just think that she just loves to be included, and loves to do the activities, and she just shines.

She's always smiling, she's always just fun to be around.

She's very contagious, and she just likes to spread laughter and joy.

>> Teacher: A little bit.

>> Reagan takes the time to meet and talk to all the girls.

She will do whatever she needs to do to make sure everyone's included.

Same as Alexa, Alexa would do the same thing.

Reagan's our leader.

I see Reagan doing very, I mean I see her being someone important someday.

She's just a really fantastic girl that just, I don't know, I can't explain it, her character, she's just compassionate, loving, you name it.

Those personality traits that she just has, she has it all.

She's very smart, she's very caring, and I just think that she's gonna do great things in the world.

>> My three coaches, Miss Quasi, Miss Slusher, and Miss McKibick, I like how they like support us.

They make me feel like comfortable here knowing I'm like supposed to like be here.

It's really fun, and like you can meet like other people and make new friends.

>> When we're running, it's to build the physical part so we can be healthier.

When we run the 5K, it's more of an accomplishment.

They feel empowered that they're able to do anything, they're able to accomplish anything.

>> I'm excited to like finally like run something, I'm finally like good at kind of.

But I'm also kinda nervous because I never ran a 5K before.

(upbeat music) (people talking indistinctly) >> It was hard, but my mom and my brother motivated me to push, so I thank them for that.

Just felt good to do it another year.

(people cheering) >> It was exciting, this is my first time doing it, last year my son did it.

But we just wanted to motivate her.

The atmosphere is amazing, to interact with each other from different schools.

I'm actually a teacher as well, so I was able to see my students who actually ran.

But you get to see so many different students, of so many different ethnic backgrounds that you all can connect to, and say we have something in common as far as us coming together to support girls over Illinois.

♪ Look how we made it this far ♪ Girls on the run, so much fun.

(upbeat music) All right girls.

(people cheering) >> Good job!

(people cheering) >> I'm so proud of you, good job!

>> I've done a lot of good things here.

I made a lot of new friends from fourth grade.

It's been a great time experiencing other things I haven't done before.

(soft music) This makes me feel comfortable and confident.

It's a great place to be.

(upbeat music) >> We are in Chesterton, Indiana, Northwest Indiana.

We offer our classes for four-years-old all the way up to adult.

And we have a taekwando program which is a traditional program.

And we also have a Brazilian jiu jitsu program.

I think the most exciting classes that you'll see today, the very first classes are little ninjas program, it's our four, five, and six-year-olds.

They have the most energy, the most excitement, whether it's bear crawling, climbing on boxes, punching, kicking, they're into everything.

My favorite part about it is their little personalities that come out as well.

So I try to do a lot of mat chats, a lot of storytelling where I'm not just imparting you know martial arts techniques on 'em, but some sort of life skill wisdom to help guide them.

Whether it's listening better at home, or just being a better role model in school.

Seven and up is our beginner program, which is gonna be another traditional taekwando program.

And you'll see our older kids.

Now the skills that you'll see, the big difference is the little ninjas, I'll teach 'em real big gross motor movements, maybe some big blocking motions.

And then the older kids you'll see doing something very similar, but we're gonna really try to pay attention to detail, so where the hand placement goes.

We're trying to develop their mind in a way that's, you know, channeling the energy of the martial arts and helping them develop obviously off the mat as well.

(upbeat rock music) >> Well my favorite part is doing all the kicks, and the forms, and the punches and all that stuff.

I usually don't go up in class and get like answer a lot of questions.

So once I started this, I started being a like little bit more confident in myself, started to answering more questions, talking louder and all that stuff.

Because I wanna grow up to be a black belt, and powerful, and I wanna be strong, and I wanna stand up, and I wanna stand up for people, and I want to help kids be confident in their self and stand up for bullies and all that stuff.

>> My favorite part is like kicking in the like dodge ball because I like to say if you could dodge a ring you could dodge a ball.

My favorite move is the flying side kick because you fly.

It's because all of the confidence and like fear is weak, because it is weak 'cause you're just afraid and you just make it up in your mind.

Because self-control means like listening to your mom and dad, listening to our teacher.

Yeah you have to earn it, and like doing something for someone.

Never give up, perseverance.

We never give up like we wanna achieve something.

Controlling your mind, body, emotions, so then we can defend ourselves.

I would really like to say I love this, I love our class.

>> Bullying, I think the statistic is you know, 100,000 kids will skip school just because they're being bullied a day.

And that's, to me that's astronomical, I can't imagine that.

I was one of them, I would fake sickness at home to not go to school and face the bullies.

I know what it feels like to be disempowered by somebody else, feeling like you have no support system.

Even though I told my mom, they told the school, I believe the schools are doing the best they can in a lot of ways, but they simply can't control what's going on.

My mom tossed me into martial arts because of bullying and that did remedy it for me.

So that's another part of this, if I can just give kids confidence to, you know, go to school.

I'm not encouraging anybody to fight, it's not about being able to fight the bully and hurt them, but man to stand up to somebody, to not feel bad about yourself for being called a name.

And obviously it goes on in the workplace, it goes on everywhere, so it doesn't stop in childhood.

If you don't learn these skills ever, you're gonna face bullies for the rest of your life in some form, right?

So to me, that's another part of my mission 'cause it's why I got involved in the martial arts in the first place.

For myself what I found, I was a super shy, introverted kid that was out of shape when I first got into the martial arts.

I mean I always, I tell the kids, for example when I was in middle school we used to have to run around a track just a quarter mile to warm up in gym, and I hated it, I could never make it one time without stopping.

When I got involved in martial arts because of bullying, my instructor was, he had great energy.

He cultivated this environment where failure wasn't bad, he made me feel comfortable to fail.

But what the martial arts developed inside of me, the confidence it gave me, I just wanted to share that with other people.

And I've seen some of the smaller kids that I trained at five or six-years-old go on to college, and one just became a news anchor in Alabama, and I'm super proud of her.

I'm seeing these kids go on having successful Navy careers.

And watching them grow in the martial arts from somebody that was shy that got all this confidence and then later on in life they're succeeding beyond, you know, whatever I thought they could, that's really been my passion.

(upbeat rock music continues) (light music) >> Discovery Charter School encourages students how to think, not what to think.

And through integrated place-based curriculum, students engage in hands-on learning, critical thinking skills, and collaborate with community partners.

And through this they become environmental and community stewards.

So with place-based education, we take students out into either the national park out on trail, or into the community, and we are able to connect their curriculum to hands-on learning in those specific locations.

When we go out on trail, we're able to tie in science standards, and history standards, even math standards, to help the students connect more to what they're learning and make it applicable to everyday life rather than just staying in the classroom.

(upbeat music) We set expectations for our students.

We more so provide positive affirmation when working with students rather than focusing on the negatives.

We really like to build students up to feel empowered to make their choices.

(upbeat music continues) Students also do learning experiences.

Typically learning experiences are once a month, and they will go out somewhere local to this area.

Third grade this year went to Chesterton and learned about the history of Chesterton, how it came to be, and they did a walking tour, as well as going to the Westchester Museum.

>> It's been amazing.

I've really loved the hands-on teaching style, along with the hikes, and learning experiences.

It's been a great experience for me.

>> Being located next to Indiana Dunes National Park (soft music) is really unique and special.

The Dunes National Park ranks at, it's like number seven for biodiversity.

So we have tons of different species of plants and animals making it a pretty unique hotspot.

We get to be in the national park every week, and talk about how special that is to be in a school that's right next to the national park.

It really creates that awesome experience and opportunity for our students.

>> I just really like how you can like be in nature and like kind of connect with the outside and still learn outside of a teaching environment.

>> We've done hikes where we're looking at patterns, and then we can also do different kinda research while we're out on the trail where they're given how many organisms can we find under this log in this area verse another, and we can work on some math problems.

What's the average amount of slugs we find in the different areas?

I would say it's definitely a more relaxed environment that we have the freedom and the opportunity to take our classrooms outside to do lessons, even utilizing our outdoor classroom for a lesson that we could easily do at our desk.

But being able to be outside, having the students get the fresh air, the sunshine, it can really impact how they're in taking that information.

I really love that I get to see students grow through their time here.

So working with them from kindergarten through eighth grade and see their love for the environment grow during their time, and just fostering a love of nature with them, and helping them to build those connections is one of my favorite things.

>> Yeah, they're, it's awesome, it's just really awesome.

It's a good school.

(upbeat music) ♪ I came from the mud there's dirt on my hands ♪ ♪ Strong like a tree there's roots where I stand ♪ (people cheering) >> We have the qualifying races for the state championship going on.

That state final will be held here in October.

We have a regular open racing program Thursday's and Saturday's, and any USA BMX member can race those races.

We have open practice open to the citizens of the community on a waiver basis, as well as our regular riders, we do that twice a week as well.

And then we have a beginner league, which is a basic BMX class for kids and adults because we have moms and dads that wanna do it too.

They may have a team name, but basically they're family groups here together to race and to celebrate the state race, and to have a good time and spend the afternoon together.

>> Me, Ayden, and my wife, and my youngest son too, he's here, he's just taking a nap, these two.

(people talking indistinctly) The BMX track is like its own family too, like when you come here Ayden can be racing a kid and other dads would help Ayden if I wasn't there, getting him to his gate, or fixing his bike if something were to happen.

So it is a very cool sport for that reason.

(people shouting indistinctly) >> Jackie: We're real family oriented, nobody just comes here, races, and leaves.

>> Yeah, I race once in a while.

Mainly it's just watching him on big races.

We just take care of him, and my 2-year-old races too on the strider bikes.

>> This began because I was driving my kid and every other neighbor kid to Elgin, Illinois to race BMX.

I said, "I don't wanna do this anymore, "we'll just do one here, so we did."

Our outdoor is celebrating its 20th year.

We started off by having a bunch of the kids from the bike trails that were around here.

And we had a meeting January of 2000, and we got a crew of volunteers, and those volunteers worked from that day to June to get this open and ready to go.

That day we had 99 brand new people who had never raced BMX sign up.

Many of those people still live in the community, and in fact, I'm still in touch with a lot of them, and we would like them to come back and see what they started.

>> You got three.

>> The track runs on volunteers that come out here every day when they get off work, they clean up the track, pat the track down, sweep it, take out the garbage, and help maintain it.

Jackie's a huge benefit to the track.

She's been here since I was a kid, I've known her.

She knows a lot about the sport, she knows how to help kids out in the sport, and put 'em in the right path to grow, teaches 'em fast route or you can just stay, just make it a fun day.

>> Jackie: And we do have quite a few 45-year-olds that raced back in the day and our back, or their children are now racing and they wanna give it a try.

>> I started racing when I was about 11-years-old and we helped out at the track all the time, volunteering here, cleaning up and everything, traveled the country.

It's a very competitive sport but it's also a very fun sport.

His best friend races his same age group, and they'll play all the time and then they go out there and race each other as hard as they can.

So they learn sportsmanship and cheer for each other when they're on the track.

They get to meet kids from all over the country, which is pretty neat.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (machines beeping) >> It's multi-generational, that's what makes this so unique is 'cause parents are here with your kids and all the kids do it at once.

I mean you don't have to go to cheerleading practice there, and dance class there, and baseball there, and basketball here.

Everybody does the same thing at the same time and mom and dad can do it also.

We've even had grandpas.

My grandson now rides, and he'll get out there and he'll scream, "Pedal nana" just like I'm screaming, "Pedal Collin!"

Those are called balance bikes.

(light music) They are from under one to up to five-years-old.

They do like half the track and they'll be racing today too.

>> Kevin: It's a very fun thing.

What little kid doesn't like to ride his bike and jump dirt jumps every day?

And it's, but it's also, they're getting outside, getting the exercise they need, they're not sitting in the house and everything.

So they get to meet kids, have fun.

>> It's fun.

>> Interviewer: Why is it fun?

>> Ayden: 'Cause it's cool and it's a lot of work.

(interviewer and Kevin laugh) >> There's a competitiveness to it, and they can get that competitiveness in probably any sport.

The difference about BMX is that I say it raises good humans, because it teaches some life lessons that life is about getting up and continuing on.

Life is about not how you start the race, but how you finish in the end.

(light music) >> Announcer 1: Centier Bank is proud to serve hometown community banking across Indiana.

For over 128 years, Indiana's largest private family owned bank has been not for sale and promises to keep it that way for years to come.

(light music) >> Announcer 2: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

(upbeat music) >> Almost every single professor I've had I'm on a first name basis.

By building that relationship with faculty, I was able to get involved with research.

It's one thing to read about an idea in a book versus physically doing it and seeing the results.

>> Announcer 3: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, LaPorte, and Valparaiso.

New classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech higher education at the speed of life.

To get started, visit IvyTech.edu.

(upbeat music) The Crossroads Chamber is transforming northwest Indiana's business landscape one connection at a time.

Experience the power of networking within our diverse community, and forge lasting relationships that can drive your business forward.

Additional support for Lake Shore Public Media and local programming, is made possible by viewers like you, thank you.

>> Announcer 4: As you travel across northwest Indiana and into Chicago, take Lake Shore Public Media 89.1 FM along for the ride.

With our newly expanded signal, we're with you from the southern corner of Michigan and into Chicago, and of course across Northwest Indiana.

From the dunes at Lake Michigan, to the windmills of Wolcott, Lake Shore Public media 89.1 FM is along for the ride wherever you call home.

(light music) >> Announcer 5: Did you know that you can find all of your favorite Lakeshore PBS shows online by visiting video.lakeshorepbs.org you can stream a large selection of shows including Eye on the Arts, in studio, and friends and neighbors.

Lakeshore PBS has taken great care to bring you the best in local content.

Not sure how to find local content?

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Not only will you find local content on Lake Shore PBS, but you can also stream live TV right to your computer.

Click on live TV and get instant access to Lakeshore PBS Live wherever you are.

Lakeshore PBS is full of wonderful content created just for you.

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Visit video.lakeshorepbs.org to stream your favorite local shows.

(light music) (light music)