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Dirt Diggers Project for Early Educators in Fairbanks
An exciting opportunity to promote healthy activity and increase natural elements in early childhood settings for young children. The coalition is interested in improving activity in young children in an effort to help prevent obesity for the rest of their lives. A recent report “Childhood Obesity in Alaska” noted 32% of children entering Kindergarten or First Grade in the Anchorage School District were already above normal weight. The report also showed 40% of 2-4 year olds enrolled in our State’s WIC programs are above normal weight.
Our coalition provides a process to help support and improve your efforts to provide children with active outdoor play and activities to get back to nature. This project assists programs in implementing the following plan to strengthen programs in nature & outdoor activities.
- A “self-assessment” to complete about the program.
- Working with a member of the coalition to set goals to increase outdoor active play and adding natural elements into your program.
- Further education opportunities through thread promotes healthy and nature activities. There will be 9 workshops available and you may receive University credit by attending 7 of them. To participate in the mini-grant portion of this project you will need to attend at least 3 training sessions.
- Up to $300 mini-grant to implement your plans. Also have connections for volunteer labor to assist with projects.
- Finally you will complete a reassessment and evaluation at the end of the school year. You will have until June 2010 to complete the project.
The partners:
Take Child Care Outdoors Coalition Dirt Diggers Mini Grants
Cathy Curby 907.456.0500 Kelly Doughty 907.479.2214
cathy_curby@fws.gov cares@pnlcdc.com
US Fish and Wildlife Service thread
Sally Levengood, PHN 907.451.1664 Juanita Frazier 907.459.1288
Fairbanks Regional Public Health Child Care Referral
Sally.levengood@alaska.gov jfrazier@co.fairbanks.ak.us
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