Congratulations to University City to be awarded such an honor! As of April 22, 2022, the School District of University City has been awarded the Green Ribbon Schools by the U.S. Department of Education. Read more about the award below from the U.S. Department of Education below.
-- The aim of U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools (ED-GRS) is to inspire schools, districts, and institutions of higher education (IHEs) to strive for 21st-century excellence by highlighting promising school sustainability practices and resources that all can employ. To that end, the award recognizes schools, districts, and IHEs that:
“This is a distinguished national list and I’m proud of both Missouri institutions for earning this special honor,” said Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven. “I’m impressed by the innovative ideas employed by both The School District of University City and Principia School to support the health and wellness of their students and staff and to ensure environmentally-friendly practices are incorporated into their school culture.” In recent years, The School District of University City constructed multiple Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certified elementary schools, 25 solar panels, and 49,000 square feet of rain gardens for water conservation. The district has utilized the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model to monitor and promote holistic wellness across environmental health, medical and mental health, and racial equity. The district is also recognized as a leader in project-based environmental and sustainability education, with outdoor “STEAM Labs” at every school campus, complete with a garden facilitator and multidisciplinary lessons. Across the country, 27 schools, five districts, and four postsecondary institutions were honored as 2022 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools. The list of all selected schools, districts, colleges, and universities, as well as their nomination information, can be found here. More information on this federal recognition award can be found here. Other links:
0 Comments
#MOHealthMedia Episode 10 - Early Childhood Physical Activity Diane H. Craft, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Physical Education Department, SUNY Cortland, has co-authored four books on developmentally appropriate, inclusive physical activity for young children including Active Play! Fun Physical Activities for Young Children. In addition, Dr. Craft has given over 280 presentations, workshops and keynotes – and now webinars - on early childhood physical activities to audiences across the nation. Since 2015 she has consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the subject matter expert on Early Childhood Physical Activity.
Fit-Tastic! Partner Spotlight video featuring Lisa Farmer and Emily Meissen-Sebelius MOve Smart Child Care is a program that recognizes early care and education (ECE) facilities for following best practices in physical activity with children birth through age five (5). Recognition is awarded by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Young children may not be reaching physical activity recommendations. Research has shown that average preschoolers may only get about 25 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity during the child care day and they are sedentary or seated for over half of the day. MOve Smart Child Care defines and teaches ECE programs to implement 12 practices or criteria that can make a big difference in how active children are. Recognition is voluntary, but if a child care has decided to be MOve Smart, all staff must work as a team to make it happen. There are two levels of recognition. The Core Level is awarded for following the first six (6) criteria. Advanced Level is awarded for following all twelve (12) criteria. Part of Missouri’s MoveSmart Program, Dr. Craft has started “More than Child’s Play” training that was held March 6th. Use the below links to access the recording and powerpoint slides >> Recording >> Slides The program also offers a new MOve Smart workbook that includes:
Lisa Farmer-Lauer, MS.Ed., Senior Nutritionist, with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Bureau of Community Health & Wellness, has over 20 years of community nutrition experience working to increase knowledge and resources in PreK-12 school settings. This broad knowledge base sets her apart from many of her peers, and offers a vision of seamless nutrition and wellness education for students, families and school stakeholders. Her current projects include ECE lead on the Missouri Physical Activity and Nutrition grant and nutrition lead on the Missouri Health Schools grant. Emily Meissen-Sebelius, M.S.W., is a project coordinator for the Weighing In program, within the Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City. Emily leads community collaboration and evaluation projects aimed to help children achieve healthy, active lives. Before joining Children’s Mercy, Emily was an analyst at the Kansas Health Institute, where she conducted research and worked with state agencies and elected officials on issues related to children's health.
Zagging: Building Advocacy Through Digital and Social Media takes an integrative marketing communications approach to helping organizations develop effective digital and social media materials for the purpose of promoting advocacy campaigns. The authors have created a resource manual guidebook using a step-by-step framework to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of advocacy campaigns through data analytics. This book addresses recently emerging topics and offer practical tools that will help leaders and marketers succeed:
Audience: A resource text for upper-level undergraduate students and graduate students taking marketing, social media, or related business courses. Also serves as a professional reference for organizational leaders and marketers. Click here to to get a peak into the outline of the book, releasing August of 2021 being published by Kendall Hunt Publishing! Guy Danhoff is the founder of ZAGPro Media and co-host of MOSHAPE's most viewed weekly content through the Live webinar series #Zagging101 sponsored by Heart Zones, Inc. (12 episodes at MOSHAPE YouTube). His step-by-step implementation of social media marketing strategies and practices directly influences many SHAPE state associations through his training and one-on-one consulting. Since March 2020, Guy has launched and produced for Missouri Healthy Schools (MHS) live weekly streaming content during the pandemic #StuckatHomeRecess, #StuckatHomeSnacks, #SpakerSpot, #TastyTuesday, and recently the host of #MOHealthMedia. Lastly, Guy was a panelist alongside the four most recent SHAPE America Presidents during a live keynote Town Hall session regarding The Impact of Social Media on Advocacy During the COVID-19 Pandemic during MOSHAPE's 2020 Virtual Convention in November. Lauren Krebs in July 2020 joined forces with MHS Digital Media Strategist Guy Danhoff and launched 12 Live Weekly Webinars that focused on helping local, state, and national leaders develop their influence, impact, and advocacy through social media. Last month in February, Guy and Lauren created the curriculum for the ZAGPro Academy 4-Week Masterclass which provided tools, resources, and instruction on how to level-up the attendee's effectiveness using digital and social media channels. Lauren holds a Master's of Science degree in Sport Management and a Bachelors of Science degree in Exercise Science from Missouri Baptist University. Lastly, Lauren is a graphic artist for Missouri Healthy Schools and loves coffee, dogs, and spending time with friends and family.
Did you know that 65% of people use YouTube to help them solve a problem? The starting point for creating consistent video content that generates views starts with answering the question, "How many people are interested in your YouTube channel topic and video topic?" Channels that grow fast focus on the specific things your target audience is already searching for on YouTube. In other words, what problem are you trying to solve for your target audience? A ZAGPro Academy power tip to consider is to avoid long-form content if you want to reach new people. Video content created in 2021 should focus on getting right to the point while keeping the video's length between 3-15 minutes. Also, videos that generate more initial views get started using a highly visual attention-grabbing thumbnail using less than five words. Another power tip is to focus your video content on quality over quantity as your audience is looking for value and insightful information. At Missouri Healthy Schools (MHS) and MOSHAPE, we have found videos that are researched, planned, edited, perceived as high value, and are under 15 minutes usually generate the most views. Moreover, the key to consistency in creating video content begins with a reproducible process that you or your social media team can perform weekly. At ZAGPro Academy, we follow a simple 7-step process for crafting repeatable video content, as shown below:
Guy Danhoff is the founder of ZAGPro Media and co-host of MOSHAPE's most viewed weekly content through the Live webinar series #Zagging101 sponsored by Heart Zones, Inc. (12 episodes at MOSHAPE YouTube). His step-by-step implementation of social media marketing strategies and practices directly influences many SHAPE state associations through his training and one-on-one consulting. Since March 2020, Guy has launched and produced for Missouri Healthy Schools (MHS) live weekly streaming content during the pandemic #StuckatHomeRecess, #StuckatHomeSnacks, #SpakerSpot, #TastyTuesday, and recently the host of #MOHealthMedia. Lastly, Guy was a panelist alongside the four most recent SHAPE America Presidents during a live keynote Town Hall session regarding The Impact of Social Media on Advocacy During the COVID-19 Pandemic during MOSHAPE's 2020 Virtual Convention in November.
Virtual Offices/Bitmoji I’m not going to lie, I really enjoy using my little Bitmoji. For those of you who are not familiar, a bitmoji is a mobile app that allows you to create a little cartoon version of yourself. It’s free and fun and it includes a variety of poses and phrases of your little person that you can use. The other thing I like is there are 100s of free templates out there! And that works great with Google Slides because as I mentioned above, you can make any shape or image you insert a link. Here is a picture of what my virtual office looks like and each photo is a link in the actual file. If you would like to make one similar, HERE is a link that will force you to make a copy but then you will be able to edit it how you want it. Below that is a library template I edited a bit. To copy that one click HERE Another fun thing you can do is set up the links to go to other slides and create little “choose your own adventure things.” Here is an example of a Halloween “escape room” I did for students. Again there are a ton of tutorials online, I just am hoping to inspire you to go out and explore!
7 Strategies for Helping Organizations Get Noticed in a Noisy and Crowded Space In my last blog, I mentioned that since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, consumption rates experienced a meteoric rise in views and engagement. The latest figures show 3.78 billion social media users worldwide in 2021—a five percent increase from a year ago. It is also 920 million more than the number of social users in 2017, representing a whopping 32.2% jump in just five years. Many organizations are now attempting to double down on their messaging using social media channels to communicate with their audience but find it challenging to grab their attention due to all the noise and clutter. Many organizations do not spend enough time training their key personnel on all the recent changes to the social media platforms themselves. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram have all made significant updates to their platforms as these companies redefine their services. One of the biggest lies for creating social media content is that the platform in 2020 will be the same in 2021. Take YouTube, for example; this platform has shifted its priorities to keeping users on their platform, which is why the two most important metrics in 2021 are looking at the (1) Average View Duration (AVD) and (2) Click-Through Rate (CTR). The second biggest lie is that with more than 50% of the world's population now using social media in 2021, more people will see my content. This notion certainly sounds great in theory; however, in reality, the greatest challenge facing everyone creating content is getting noticed as consumption patterns have significantly shifted since Labor Day of 2020. Long-form videos (over 10 minutes) that once generated thousands of views in the spring and summer turned into only a few hundred views (source: MOSHAPE & Missouri Healthy Schools social media analytics). The third biggest lie is that organizational leaders can generate the most attention when creating content on social media. While this strategy sounds excellent on a Zoom conference call meeting, in theory, to have the leaders posting content, our research reveals that the "micro-influencers" within the organization usually have the most significant opportunity to get their content noticed. Now that we are aware of the three biggest lies for creating social media content in 2021, we must pay attention to the fact we live in a boisterous and oversaturated world. There are over 60 billion messages sent out on digital platforms every day. Like it or not, we are not just competing against our direct competition. But instead, we are competing against all other pieces of content. The following seven strategies will level-up and improve your organization's chances of getting noticed moving forward with your social media content.
Stay tuned for my next blog as I unpack the seven-step process for creating consistent video content that generates views. Guy Danhoff is the founder of ZAGPro Media and co-host of MOSHAPE's most viewed weekly content through the Live webinar series #Zagging101 sponsored by Heart Zones, Inc. (12 episodes at MOSHAPE YouTube). His step-by-step implementation of social media marketing strategies and practices directly influences many SHAPE state associations through his training and one-on-one consulting. Since March 2020, Guy has launched and produced for Missouri Healthy Schools (MHS) live weekly streaming content during the pandemic #StuckatHomeRecess, #StuckatHomeSnacks, #SpakerSpot, #TastyTuesday, and recently the host of #MOHealthMedia. Lastly, Guy was a panelist alongside the four most recent SHAPE America Presidents during a live keynote Town Hall session regarding The Impact of Social Media on Advocacy During the COVID-19 Pandemic during MOSHAPE's 2020 Virtual Convention in November. Happy Tech Tuesday! Today I want to talk about the fabulous tool: Google Slides. Google slides is marketed as a program similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. A school nurse may want to utilize this for the following:
I am going to first discuss how to make a presentation stand out and then I will cover some fun ways you can use Google Slides. To get started you will need a google account. First, if you don’t have a google account you will need to create one. Instructions on that can be found HERE. Next, you will go to slides.google.com. You will see that Google slides provide a variety of templates to help you get started. My first suggestion is to look through there to see if there is one already created for what you are looking to do. From there it works similar to the PowerPoint program many people are familiar with. Some tips on creating a presentation that stands out:
Fliers/Handouts You can change the size of the slide you are working on to be the same size as a normal 8x10 sheet of paper. You do this by opening up a blank slide file, click on file and then go all the way down to page setup. It will bring up the below screen where you can click on the little down arrow where it says widescreen and then change it to custom. Then you can make it an 8x10! This ensures that whatever you make will print out nicely. Another fun thing is you can add in links anywhere. Below is an example of a flyer I made for a virtual event. By using the shape tool , You can put a box around whatever you want to become a link. After you put the shape around it, you find the hyperlink button that looks like . Click on the shape and then click on the hyperlink button and it will ask you to put in the website you want it to go too. You can add any web link, calendar link, or even a zoom link here. If you save these fliers as PDFs all of your links will still work and then there is no worrying about sharing your original document with anyone.
Happy Tech Tuesday School Nurses! Here are some tips and tricks about bookmarks if you use Google Chrome as your browser. Bookmarking a website allows you to save a webpage to visit later. This is great for websites you use often or that have information that you would like to access later. You can bookmark a website by clicking on the star icon in the address bar. After clicking on the star a little window will pop up asking where you would like to put it. Similar to files on your computer you can create different folders to store bookmarks in. You can create a new folder when you bookmark a page by clicking on the down arrow next to the folder name and choosing the “choose another folder” option. Then the below screen will pop up where you can make a new folder. The Bookmarks bar default is a nice area to put things that you will access often because you can set up your browser to always display. You do this by clicking on the 3 vertical dots in the upper right corner of the browser window, going down to bookmarks, and then clicking “show bookmarks bar.” You will then need to close and reopen your browser. After doing so all of your bookmarks will appear underneath the address bar. You can click and drag things on the bar to organize it how you like.
Another great feature of the bookmark bar is you can create a folder with things you use a lot and then right-click on that folder to open all the websites at once. For example, let’s say every morning you open: your email, your school’s attendance, your charting system, and the local weather. Using the steps above, you can create a folder and title it “Morning Websites”, you can then create bookmarks using the steps above and place those websites in the folder. Then you can right-click on the folder and open them all at once each morning for a time saver. In October, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) extended its summer meal program through the end of June 2021. With this in mind, schools in mid-Missouri have started proving different programs to get food to students during the pandemic. The Grab & Go meals for Columbia Public Schools (CPS) include breakfast and lunch. There’s quite a bit of food and the families that receive it find it convenient and reduce financial stress. An average of 99 students used the free lunch program before the schools went virtual and after that it spiked to 142 students.
Grab and Go routes will end on Jan. 18, 2021. Virtual meal grab and go will move to select school locations and times to be announced in early January. For more information on the Grab and Go routes, click here. |
AuthorHi! My name is Nirja and I'm the Web Content Manager for the Missouri Healthy Schools (MHS) project. Hope you gain something from the content shared here! Archives
April 2022
Categories |