Topic: Community Engagement

Students in a First Year Seminar course research, create and install plant signage at Daniel Boone Native Gardens.

A campus learning garden teaches children how plants grow and where food comes.

Appalachian State University has received a $183,000 Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Program grant to implement a training program designed to enhance the capacity of 20 teachers representing 17 countries to teach science and English. The TEA Fellows will come from Bangladesh, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Guatemala, India, Jordan, Mali, Nicaragua, Niger, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Zambia.

Appalachian State University has received a second grant totaling $297,529 from the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to continue an exchange project between public schools in Watauga County and Taxila, Pakistan.

Children who play on an athletics field at Appalachian State University’s Camp Broadstone in Valle Crucis may not realize the history that lies beneath their feet. This summer, university students in Appalachian’s archeology field school found a 4,000-year-old cooking hearth and a small vessel nearly as old about two feet underground.

Fifteen secondary-level biology teachers were selected by the Fulbright Commission to attend a six-week training program at Appalachian in July and August of 2007. They spent four weeks strengthening their skills in science, educational technology, teaching and English. Then, they spent two weeks applying what they learned by team teaching in Watauga County Schools. While in the public schools, they also shared information about their native culture with children in social studies and other non-science classes.