Your Pathway to Health Coloring Book.
A coloring book that shows the Health Care
Professionals from Africa, African American, Mexican, Mexican American, Asian Pacific Islander, Asian (Afghani) and Euro American culturals. Students from the Summer Academy project themselves into the future ten years and represent themselves in their professions. A box of multicultural crayons is provided to authenticate skin tones. Middle school students discuss racial heritage vs. skin color. The students are asked and encouraged to talk about the colors of skin and the trueness of calling people black, brown and white when reacial heritage means something very different.


  • To increase multi-cultural
    awareness in middle school students.
  • Create assessment tools that
    show growth in understanding
    of presented materials.

HCPP/KUMC
KC Mentoring Initiative
Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools
Kansas City, Kansas Community College
The Storytellers Inc., Artist Collective

 
   
Organic gardens are built and maintaned by middle school students in three middle schools.
A menu of garden workshops is provided to teachers integrating KCK Garden Curriculum into the science curriculum. Garden Menu includes the following Cultural Awareness components:
The Parts of a Seed:
Using the peanut to experience the parts of a seed, KCK Gardens highlights George Washington Carvers contributions in science. Students make peanut butter from the peanuts studied in the workshop.
Salsa Gardens:
Students are given a workshop on making organic Salsa. Salsa gardens are planted and the Latino dance is learned. Students talk about the origins of Salsa and how different foods and tastes come from the different cultures.
Worm Composting:
Students learn how to make rich topsoil through using worm casings taken from the worm composting bins they made in workshops. Discovering the interdependence in nature can lead to the same awareness and need for humanity.
 
Urban Transcendence Poetry deals with honest discovery of "Who Am I?", "Who Are You?" and takes a journey inward to self-discovery.
Sharing openly in a thoughtful, safe environment provides an opportunity for students to talk about issues that have become barriers, problems and successes. These conversations are teh starting point for writing poetry and Hip Hop rhythm. A poetry anthology is published and printed from poetry submitted and chosen in grades 4th through 12th, Urban Transcendence IV.
 
Recycling, pollution and health awareness are topics included in the Video Technology and EnvironMental Project.
Using Art, Technology and the University of Kansas Medical Center field trips, students learn how their city rates in toxic fumes, waste, asthma and child lead poisoning. Learning how to solve environmental problems and providing opportunities for children to teach other children about what they have learned is all a part of the inner city awareness taking place to provide students with more understanding in how to overcome obstacles and provide solutions in the urban environment.
Students create EnvironMental short films (Leady Kruger), PSA's and games (Leadopoly) in the hands on curriculum. Students take a field trip to the Upper Respiratory Department of KUMC to see actual damage from environmental pollution, cigarette smoking, etc.

       
Increasing math and science skills in middle school students, allowing higher math and science electives during junior year of high school. Eighty percent of academy eighth grade students will understand and be succcessful in Algebra I at the end of their Saturday Academy experience.
Team Building:
Self-awareness and team awareness exercises are used as openers and after lunch activities to increase comfort levels in conversations between students and staff. Activities will include identifying groups, tastes in music and popular culture that students can easily say, "I identify with this group." Small group discussions will take place about noting common experiences of race, gender and sexuality in identification. Group examples might include: "I attend church, synagogue or mosque." "I like rap." "I watch Spanish TV." "I watch BET, (Black Entertainment Network)." :"Family is important to me." "I have Gay and Lesbian friends and family." "I speak two languages." "My parents were born in a different country than the United States."
Urban Transcendence Poetry:
Using Multicultural Heritage Month themes, Urban Transcendence Poetry offers a backdrop for self-identity, group identity and new awareness of cultures in the Saturday Academy experience. During Mexican American Heritage Month, the story of a local Hispanic Integration Activist from the 1950's was shared and discussed. The similar prejudicial treatment of Mexican American children to the African American experience trying to integrate the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, provides rich discussion and poetry writing through a shared experience of oppression. Reading poems in original language of Spanish, allows Latino students to feel pride in Latino poets through the beautiful words. English speaking students must ask Latino students for the translation. It changes the language power base. African American historical film and poetry is used to highlight African American History Month. A Latino middle school male student was so moved by the Slave Narratives that he wrote a poem for Black History Month. Developing a climate where empathy might grow is part of the curriculum of Urban Transcendence.
       

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