The effect of selected materials on the achievement of students in the intermediate grades in Native American cultural instruction

Materials concerning ethnic and minority groups are a concern for many curriculum leaders. Inappropriate materials perpetuate stereotypes, in many cases due to a lack of study concerning the information within the materials. The materials concerning Native Americans typically presented in public school classrooms tend to overgeneralize information about the cultural groups of native people found in North America. This study addressed the content of materials pertaining to one specific group, the Native American of the Great Plains region. The researcher questioned the traditional curriculum materials found in the Kansas history program used in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade instruction, which concerned the Indians who resided in the area. Traditional materials addressed only the culture found after the horse was an established part of the culture of the native inhabitants. The prehistory of the native people before Anglo-Saxon intervention and the changes that occurred because of the introduction of the horse into the cultures of the Great Plains region was limited. Materials that contained descriptions of the history before white settlement and changes that occurred because of the horse were developed by the researcher. In an effort to determine the most suitable grade level to implement such curriculum, the researcher tested self-developed materials in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. A pretest posttest design was utilized for the study. Descriptive statistics were compiled for all data sets and for the total sample. Pretest mean scores and posttest mean scores for each grade level were compared employing a t-test for repeated measures. Analysis of covariance using pretest scores as the covariant was employed to compare performance at the grade levels investigated (4-6). Multiple comparisons of the adjusted posttest means were made employing least square means. The results cited in the study indicate that the posttest mean score was significantly larger than the pretest mean score for all groups tested. The most significant increase was noted at the fourth grade level. Based upon the achievement of the students tested, after adjustments were made for preknowledge, the developed materials appeared to be most ideally suited for fourth grade level students. Samples of the materials that were developed by the researcher are included in the Appendices of the paper

Opportunities for Impact: Health Promotion in Rural Early Care and Education Environments

Early care and education settings are essential partners in the battle against childhood obesity. We describe an Extension-facilitated early childhood obesity prevention intervention conducted in 25 rural early care and education settings. A total of 148 policy, systems, or environmental changes were achieved, reaching approximately 450 young children. Systems changes were the most prevalent outcome achieved. The experiences of Extension professionals in promoting policy, systems, and environmental changes are highlighted as are implications for other Extension systems and professionals promoting policy, systems, or environmental changes in early care and education settings

Early Childhood Obesity Prevention in Rural West Virginia Extension’s Role and Lessons Learned

The Cooperative Extension system is uniquely positioned to lead rural community efforts to prevent obesity in early childhood. This article explores best practices in promoting healthy weights among young children and shares examples and resources relevant to Extension programming. The West Virginia (WV) Healthy Children Project aims to improve community, home, and early care and education (ECE) environments by promoting healthy eating, physical activity, outdoor play, and reduced screen time. This project primarily focuses on interventions with ECE providers serving 2-5-year-old children in three rural counties. Comprehensive assessments informed the interventions and guided Community Advisory Committees. ECE providers were trained in “I Am Moving, I Am Learning” (IMIL) and “Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care” (Go NAP SACC) best practices and were supported with technical assistance and classroom resources. Garden-based learning, natural playscapes, painted playgrounds, and farm-to-ECE further enhanced the environments and experiences. Community leaders were engaged in advisory committees, transformative projects, and local family-focused activities. The efficacy of these practices was tracked using quantitative and qualitative evaluation strategies conducted throughout the project, including observations, ripple effects mapping, and questionnaires. This article describes the overall project strategies and reveals the lessons learned and the challenges encountered

West Virginia’s Response to the Rotten Truth about Oral Health

West Virginia University Extension Service has taken steps to increase the awareness and practices of good oral health. Significant barriers exist for optimal dental health and preventive care for youth in West Virginia. The 4-H Health Initiative strengthens community 4-H clubs through joint commitment to improve the Health “H,” club reliance on youth leadership, responsiveness to youth voices, and involvement of community health resources. These efforts bring oral health education and services to school-age youth. Evaluation data suggest that the model may impact oral health behaviors

A spatially anchored transcriptomic atlas of the human kidney papilla identifies significant immune injury in patients with stone disease

Kidney stone disease causes significant morbidity and increases health care utilization. In this work, we decipher the cellular and molecular niche of the human renal papilla in patients with calcium oxalate (CaOx) stone disease and healthy subjects. In addition to identifying cell types important in papillary physiology, we characterize collecting duct cell subtypes and an undifferentiated epithelial cell type that was more prevalent in stone patients. Despite the focal nature of mineral deposition in nephrolithiasis, we uncover a global injury signature characterized by immune activation, oxidative stress and extracellular matrix remodeling. We also identify the association of MMP7 and MMP9 expression with stone disease and mineral deposition, respectively. MMP7 and MMP9 are significantly increased in the urine of patients with CaOx stone disease, and their levels correlate with disease activity. Our results define the spatial molecular landscape and specific pathways contributing to stone-mediated injury in the human papilla and identify associated urinary biomarkers

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin