Engaging children in natural settings enhances learning and promotes development while utilizing protected natural areas. However, many schoolchildren, especially from economically disadvantaged areas, lack support for environmental education (EE) to develop skills and attitudes to increase rates of appropriate, resource-protective behaviors. This causes resource degradation wherever children visit protected natural areas. Improved EE should reduce the amount of resource degradation when children visit natural settings. This project proposes a model program of replicable, low–cost, widely accessible critical thinking activities and materials designed to directly address this problem. The Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois, Camp Ondessonk, and Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge were partners in this project. The objectives were to create, test, evaluate, and disseminate tools for teachers in the form of a pre–visit program with three specific engagement methods to engage children in activities that cultivate critical thinking and encourage resource–appropriate behaviors. Original activities involving a discussion–based journal, handmade wristband, and interactive games were conducted during small–group interactive workshops at Camp Cedar Point in Makanda, Illinois and Camp Ondessonk in Ozark, Illinois (n=225). Pre/post program evaluations were administered, and camper behavior on a hike was observed. It was hypothesized that campers would shift towards a more pro–environmental attitude and exhibit lower rates of depreciative behaviors after any combination of activities than the control group of campers, and that a combination of all three methods of engagement would be the most effective approach in reducing depreciative behavior and changing attitudes towards resource protection, by addressing multiple motivations. The most effective combination of activities in changing attitudes was found to be the journal and games (p<0.01), although all combinations of the program activities resulted in attitude scores that were higher than the initial score (p<0.01). There was no significant change in behavior between treatments or between the control group and treatments. Possible causes and other considerations are discussed, including recommendations for future research on the effect of adult behavior modeling, reminders, and factors such as weather, gender, and group size on the depreciative rates of children. The activities will be combined into a PDF packet for distribution to teachers by land managers and environmental educators in the area.

TEETH AND OTHER TALES is a novella and a collection of short stories that explore the blurry lines between illusion and reality. Teeth, the novella, is narrated backward in time, chronicling the life of Lucy from the age of sixty-five back to seventeen. After years of surviving an oppressive marriage, Lucy escapes her husband, but in doing so abandons her three children. In order to rationalize her decisions, Lucy uses selective memory to create her own reality to the extent that she comes to believe her own delusions. The four short stories in the collection feature protagonists who create their own personal myths and struggle to protect their distorted truths, with mixed results. These struggles between the “real,” as conventionally defined, and personal fictions are complicated by elements of magical realism and surrealism. The stories were influenced by the short fiction of Nikolai Gogol, Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami.

Osteoporosis affects half of all women over the age of fifty, but can be prevented through proper nutrition and exercise early in life. Few studies have been conducted that document positive gains in knowledge about osteoporosis prevention in young girls and no research has been completed in which osteoporosis education is delivered by peers in children. A 3-A-Day™ of dairy peer education program was developed by local Girl Scouts with the purpose of teaching other Girl Scouts about the importance of calcium intake and weight-bearing activities in the prevention of osteoporosis, overweight, and hypertension. Peer educators had significant increases in their overall knowledge of dairy (p<0.001) and self-efficacy related to 3-A-Day™ (p<0.05) after teaching peer education programs. Program participants had significant improvements in knowledge of calcium-rich foods (p<0.001) and weight-bearing activities (p<0.001). Participants were able to identify the recommended number of dairy servings per day (p<0.01). Although parents indicated that their daughters' knowledge increased after participation in the peer education program, parents' ratings of knowledge were not significantly related with daughters' ratings. Qualitative evaluation indicated that these Girl Scouts enjoyed serving as peer educators. This research supports the importance of osteoporosis education in young girls and demonstrates positive outcomes of peer education for both educators and program participants. / Master of Science

Girl Scouting began in Utah in 1921 out of a desire of several wealthy women to help build the character of young girls in Ogden. Exhibiting many elements of the "social gospel" aspect of progressivism, they adopted the Girl Scout program which emphasized preparation for practical living, appreciation of nature, and development of character.Since the first troops were organized in Ogden, Girl Scouting slowly spread throughout the rest of the state, resulting in several Councils and Lone Troops. After responding to a call for consolidation from the National Girl Scout Council the Utah Scouts made a dramatic change in 1961 to a single Council: The Utah Girl Scout Council.Although growth in size has been fairly steady, the Girl Scouts have encountered the unique problem of dealing with a dominant religious community, the LDS Church, which has demonstrated ambiguous feelings about the Girl Scout program. Nevertheless, the Girl Scouts have played an important role in Utah's communities and have continued to grow and strengthen.

This study was made in attempt to identify the characteristics of a troop program in which tenth grade girls had been involved and to determine why they did or did not continue in Scouting. A survey instrument was devised and pretested to validate and improve upon the questionnaire. The questionnaires were distributed through the mail to 190 girls who had been registered in the Kentuckiana Council Scouting program in 1981. All girls, despite their present status in Scouting were asked to complete and return the survey. The questions pertained to such areas as years involved in Scouting, frequency of meetings, most and least enjoyable activities, family involvement, reasons for remaining in Scouting and reasons for dropping out of the program. The responses of 131 girls who returned the questionnaire to the researcher were tabulated. The data were accumulated and analyzed. The survey indicated that the Kentuckiana Girl Scout Council had a high Cadette/Senior retention rate for this period of time. A profile of the Scouting program of a girl who had remained in the program was made with recommendations, based on the analysis of the study, to encourage the retention of older girls. It was suggested, according to the findings of the study, that in order for girls to continue into the upper levels of Scouting, they needed to be recruited at a young age, involved in program planning, and feel as though Girl Scouting is fun. Leader retention and uniforms were not found to be significant factors in retention or dropping out of Scouting. Additional research was recommended by simultaneously comparing two or more Councils.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Human Nutrition / David A. Dzewaltowski / The environment can be broadly defined as all things external to an individual. One of the most important environments for children is the home in which they live, particularly with regard to the role that parents play to provide opportunities for healthful development, including adequate physical activity and healthful eating habits. Parents are the gatekeepers of children's healthful opportunities, and are influential in numerous aspects related to obesity. The present paper consists of four chapters related to impacting the home environment for prevention of obesity in children. Although obesity is a complex issue, its cause is energy imbalance, wherein less energy is expended than is consumed. Consideration of both sides of the equation is essential for obesity prevention. In this dissertation, chapter 1 serves as a literature review for the home food environment. A conceptual model is presented as an attempt to place relevant literature in the greater context of environmental variables related to childhood obesity. Frequent family meals have been shown to be protective for child and adolescent obesity, and to promote fruit and vegetable consumption. However, time pressures and lack of cooking skills are potential barriers to this healthful practice. Decreases in television viewing and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption are other home environmental aspects showing promise in the obesity prevention literature. Chapters two and three address the influence of parents on children's obesity-preventive behaviors and relative weight status. These chapters help to inform the planning of interventions to prevent obesity in children. Parent-child shared physical activity may hold promise as a strategy to decrease the likelihood of children becoming obese, and bonding may be an important consideration in programs aimed at obesity treatment or prevention. Chapter four describes the evaluation of an intervention developed to impact the home environment of young girl scouts. This intervention was implemented by troop leaders altering troop-meeting environments toward more healthful opportunities for physical activity and nutrition, and through the delivery of a scouts-tailored curriculum. Results of the intervention showed marked changes to troop meeting environments, but apparently little impact on parents or the home environment.

<div>The purpose of this research was to develop and validate an instrument designed to assess programming of youth development organizations. The instrument can be used by leaders of youth development organizations to monitor the organization’s performance in developing productive and engaged citizens. This research viewed youth development organizations as a microsystem that youth interact with (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). A complete review of the literature on youth development organizations was conducted to determine the components of positive youth development organizations. The resulting conceptual framework consisted of project, skills and knowledge, community contribution, high-density experiences, environment, non-parental adult, and near-peer role models.</div><div><br></div><div>An item pool was developed based on the literature available on youth development organization programming. This item pool was reviewed by experts in youth development organization programming and inclusion. Then the items were entered into two tools to assess grammar and concise language. Third, the items were administered to a small sample then analyzed for correlations and contributions to reliability. Items were eliminated if they correlated too highly with other items and if they did not contribute to the reliability of the scale. Fourth, the items were administered to a broader sample and correlations and reliability measures were analyzed again with more items removed. Finally, the items were administered to another sample and analyzed for multicollinearity and reliability. The final sample took the survey a second time and responses were compared based on paired t-tests to establish test-retest reliability.<br></div><div><br></div><div>The 15-item instrument exhibits appropriate measures of validity and reliability to recommend its usage by youth development organization leaders to evaluation programming. The instrument is parsimonious so leaders can add program-specific questions while avoiding participant fatigue. A complete version of the instrument is available in the appendices.</div>

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / During the early Cold War, 1949 through 1963, the federal government, through such agencies as the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) (1950-1957), the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization (OCDM) (1958-1960), and the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) (1961-1963), regarded children and young adults as essential to American civil defense. Youth-oriented, voluntary organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA), assisted the federal civil defense programs by promoting civil defense messages and agendas. In this thesis, I will explore how the GSUSA and BSA translated federal civil defense policies for their Scouts. What were the civil defense messages transmitted to Scouts during the early Cold War? How were those messages disseminated? Why? What was the social impact of BSA and GSUSA involvement with civil defense on America’s evolving national ideals?