Education

What do bats, mushrooms, wilderness, the Mississippi River, art, citizen science and mounds all have in common? The answer is Effigy Mounds National Monument Summer Evening Programs. Join Effigy Mounds National Monument every Sunday and Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. in the Effigy Mounds National Monument Visitor Center for fun explorations and intriguing discussions about these topics.

All programs begin at 7 p.m. and are offered through the summer season ending October 20. Attendance is free and reservations are not required. Below are the topics and remaining schedule:

The Waukon High School athletic campaign for the 2019-2020 season will get kicked off Thursday night, August 22 at the annual Meet the Team/Sports Drink Scrimmage Night being held at Waukon High School, beginning at 4 p.m. with a variety of scheduled activities. The Allamakee Athletic Booster Club will kick off the event at 4 p.m. with its annual membership drive that includes an appreciation meal being served to Booster members and athletes at the Waukon High School cafeteria.

At 5 p.m., a featured speaker will address the crowd in the Waukon High School gym. Upper Iowa University (UIU) Vice President of Athletics will be this year’s featured speaker. Hartzell joined the Upper Iowa University Athletics Department as the Peacocks’ director of athletics in January 2018. Prior to the 2019-2020 academic year, he was promoted to Vice President for Athletics. Hartzell previously served as the director of athletics at the University of Northern Iowa from 1999 through 2008.

The school gardens at two Waukon schools are flourishing thanks to the green thumbs of the young gardeners involved in the Summer Food and Fitness program hosted by the Iowa 4-H AmeriCorps program, ISU Extension and Outreach and the Allamakee Community School District (ACSD). In June, club members planted and tended the garden at the Waukon Middle School. Nine raised beds were filled with cucumbers, tomatoes, ground cherries, kohlrabi, peppers, peas, cauliflower and sunflowers. Some of the yield from this garden will be shared with students taking part in the ACSD summer feeding program in August.

Mental illness affects the whole family, not just the one with the diagnosis. No one is ever ready for the arrival of mental illness in a loved one. Family members can often feel overwhelmed as they try to learn more about the illness, treatment options, and how to adjust to this new reality in their lives.

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) of Northeast Iowa is presenting a free one-day course, Hope for Recovery, designed for family members who have a loved one dealing with mental illness. The course is also open to the general public. Participants will learn about types of mental illnesses, treatments and recovery, coping strategies, communication tools, the mental health system, and local resources.

The course will be held Saturday, August 10 from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in Cresco at Regional Health Services of Howard County, located at 235 Eighth Avenue West. Call Susan Friedrich at 563-422-7882 for more information and to register for this course.

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach offers ServSafe® food safety certification classes. ServSafe® meets the criteria for an individual to become a “Certified Food Protection Manager” (CFPM).

Iowa’s Food Code (as of January 1, 2014) requires that: “at least one food establishment employee with management and supervisory responsibility be a CFPM.”

The ServSafe® program blends the latest FDA Food Code, food safety research and years of food sanitation training experience. Managers learn to implement essential food safety practices and create a culture of food safety. All content and materials are based on actual job tasks identified by foodservice industry experts.

The class will be taught by Jill Weber, Human Sciences Specialist, Nutrition and Wellness and Registered ServSafe® Proctor & Certified ServSafe® Instructor. Training will be offered at the Allamakee County Extension Office in Waukon Monday, September 16 from 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

The 10th Hour Middle School summer program in the Allamakee Community School District (ACSD) had many adventures during the month of June. The first week was filled with information from Beth Shafer as she presented the students with experiences of being a pilot and ended with a visit to the Waukon Airport, as pictured in the photo at center. The students climbed aboard two different planes belonging to local pilots Jim Wadsworth and Richard Loven, who taught the students “all there is to know about flying”.

The program’s first field trip was to the “Go Free Escape Room” in Cedar Rapids where the students had to solve mysteries of the missing Ancient Egyptian Amulet. The group continued with the Egyptian theme throughout the rest of the month by making mummies, a sarcophagus, pyramids, hieroglyphics, a death mask and painted Egyptian Gods.

The Allamakee Community School District (ACSD) has been participating in the Free Summer Food Service Program again this year, and its final offering for this year of those free breakfast and lunch meals will begin Monday, August 5. Menus for those final August dates accompany this article (both printed at right). Breakfast and lunch will be provided to all children ages one through this past spring’s graduating seniors at no charge and are the same for all children, regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability, and there will be no discrimination in the course of the meal service.

Meals will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis at the sites and times as follows:

• Waukon Middle School Cafeteria: Mondays-Fridays, August 5-16. Breakfast will be served from 8-9 a.m. and lunch will be served from 11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m.

Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) Business and Community Solutions is offering an “Intro to Welding” class series which will meet each Saturday in September, September 7, 14, 21 and 28, from 8 a.m.-12 p.m. at the Waukon High School.

With the skills learned in this 16-hour class, those attending will understand safe welding practices, become familiar with welding equipment, use basic measuring tools, and learn to weld from different positions. Once they have learned those basic skills, they’ll have dedicated time to do a welding project of their choice - anything from a farm or home project to an art piece - with steel that they, themselves, provide.

Project size is limited and must be approved by the instructor at the first class. The registration deadline is August 23.

Through the 2019 4-H Ag Innovators Experience (4-H AIE), local Iowa teens had the opportunity to teach and guide younger youth through the Native Bee Challenge to learn about how increasing habitat for native bees benefits the food supply and agriculture.

Madi Palmer, a 4-H teen from Waukon, was excited to participate in the 4-H Ag Innovators Experience because she is passionate about agriculture and understands that pollination is extremely important to the sustainability of the industry.

“I didn’t know a lot about native bees and realized that most of the public probably doesn’t either,” Palmer shared. “I wanted to be able to educate the public and let them know that bees aren’t just annoying little bugs. They actually are very important to the pollination of the plants that other farmers and I raise.”

The Iowa Department of Education, Bureau of Nutrition and Health Services has announced its policy for free and reduced price meals for children unable to pay the full price of meals served under the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program and the Afterschool Care Snack Program. State and Local school officials have adopted the family size and income criteria viewable in the chart accompanying this article for determining eligibility, effective July 1, 2019.

Households may be eligible for free or reduced price meal benefits one of four ways listed below.