Photos by Kevin Fitzsimons

Virginia Pankratz teaches Spanish to a class of first- and second-graders at Washington Elementary School in Pickaway County.

New outreach program takes Spanish to the country

Grades K-3 learning foreign language in Pickaway County

A pilot program designed to introduce Spanish to elementary students is extending Ohio State's outreach and diversity efforts into rural Pickaway County.

The program,"Taking Spanish Speaking Countries Into The Country," is funded by a $10,000 OSU CARES grant and takes place at Washington Elementary School near Circleville. It involves teaching Spanish as a second language to kindergarten through third-grade classes and, in turn, increasing literacy development and improving scores on portions of state proficiency tests.

The project is being spearheaded by Debbie Wilburn Robinson, assistant professor of foreign and second language education in the School of Teaching and Learning; Gwen Wolford, leader of legislative and county relations and diversity for the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and OSU Extension; Judy Conrad, OSU Extension agent in Pickaway County; and Scott Scheer, assistant professor of human and community resource development.

Robinson said the venture reflects a national movement promoting foreign languages.

"There is a call for 50 percent of the elementary school children to be involved in foreign languages by the year 2010," she said."Right now, we're at 20 percent nationally, and that's mostly at private and urban settings."

Gwen Wolford, of the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and OSU Extension, left, and Judy Conrad, of OSU Extension, played key roles in bringing a Spanish curriculum to Washington Elementary School near Circleville.

In Ohio, the percentage is between 11 and 15 percent, she added.

Robinson said studying a foreign language can improve skills in other areas.

"In terms of basic skills, those involved in foreign language outperform other children who have not been exposed to foreign language," Robinson said."Those skills include math, reading, language arts, science and social science skills."

The idea for the Spanish outreach program came about when Wolford sought a foreign language course for her children, now ages 6 and 9. They attend Washington Elementary, where the pilot program takes place."I quickly discovered it wasn't an easy thing to accomplish, especially in a rural setting," Wolford said.

She hooked up with Robinson, and the two of them received the grant through OSU CARES, which encourages collaborative outreach and engagement efforts that support Ohio State's land-grant mission. Next, they drew up a plan for the Spanish project and gained the approval of the Logan Elm School Board to begin the project in January of this year.

Robinson enlisted the services of graduate students Hillary Raymond and Carmen Chacon to write the curriculum, which consists of 66 30-minute Spanish lessons.

The lessons are taught three times a week. And the students are learning more than vocabulary.

"Elementary foreign language is very much tied to other curriculum areas so that the concepts they're learning are reinforced in foreign language class," Robinson said.

Michelle Duncan, principal at Washington Elementary School, said older students study Mexican culture, while kindergartners learn colors while playing Bingo in Spanish. Children also learn the food groups and months of the year, and study weather terms -- all in Spanish."It's given them a new outlook on school. They enjoy it and are having fun," Duncan said.

During the curriculum-developing process, teachers at the Pickaway County school submitted a list of areas they wanted the program to reinforce. Robinson said most teachers requested literacy development linked to state proficiency tests in that area.

"Studying a foreign language increases SAT scores more than studying any other area," Robinson said. She and Wolford hope to establish the same connection between learning a foreign language and proficiency test scores.

Wolford said the program not only extends Ohio State's outreach efforts, but also its diversity mission."This is bringing diversity into a white middle-class area," she said.

The Spanish classes are taught by Virginia Pankratz, known as"Se–ora Martinez" to her students (Martinez is her maiden name). A resident of Pickaway County but born in Mexico, Pankratz is a native Spanish speaker and a trained bilingual teacher.

Plans call for a review of the Spanish curriculum and an interest in expansion of the project nationally through 4-H in-school programs.

A package will be submitted for review to 4-H youth development faculty. "Teaching kits will then be available on loan from 4-H extension agents throughout the U.S.," Robinson added.

Wolford, Robinson and Duncan are searching for additional funding to extend the pilot project beyond the current school year, and to expand the program into other Pickaway County schools as well as fourth-grade classes. This would entail a deeper curriculum for the older fourth-graders and an expanded source of funding.

OSU CARES grants have typically been available for one year and are used to launch new outreach efforts. But the proposals that will be due this spring (see accompanying box) may be revised to allow matching funds in some cases to sustain a pilot program for a second year, Wolford said.

Grant proposals due by May 31

The President's Council for Outreach and Engagement and its partners, OSU CARES and Campus Collaborative, are offering a new round of seed grants for the year 2000. The total amount of support available is $180,000, with 15 to 20 grants to be awarded. The request for proposals will be available on the Web April 14 at www.ag.ohio-state.edu/-engage/. Grant proposals are due May 31.

The grants are intended to stimulate faculty, staff, students and community partners to create new and innovative approaches to community outreach and engagement as well as demonstrate institutional support for outreach and engagement.

To learn more about the grants awarded through each program, visit the Web sites of each entity:

• Campus Collaborative: www.osu.edu/campuscollab/

• OSU CARES: www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~osucares

• Outreach & Engagement Council: www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~engage/

For more information, contact Gail Carr-Williams at 688-4615 or carr-williams.1@osu.edu., or Karen Bruns at 292-9613 or bruns.1@osu.edu.

Peers see merits of professor's work

When she came to Ohio State as a faculty member four years ago, Karla Zadnik felt like she had come home. After all, the optometry professor had grown up in Ohio, and had every intention of becoming a Buckeye.

But fate had other plans.

Shortly after graduating from high school, her family moved to California. She earned her optometry degree and Ph.D. from Berkeley. It was in California where she also began an enviable career in research, a career that's continued full-force at Ohio State. And it's her research that has put her on the map of leading optometrists.

Just last December, Zadnik received two awards for her involvement in improving vision care for patients. Recognized by her peers for her dedication to research, she now holds the honor of being one of the best optometrists of the last decade, as well as one of the most influential optometrists of all time.

By Kevin Fitzsimons

Karla Zadnik, optometry professor and researcher, received two awards in December for her involvement in improving vision care for patients.

"Winning these awards means that somebody is listening, that this research is going to impact how a patient is cared for. To receive these awards as somebody who does clinical research is quite meaningful," said Zadnik, an associate professor of optometry.

Zadnik received one of the first 10 Golden Eye awards, given by Optometric Management magazine. The Golden Eye recognizes optometrists who are"contributors as clinicians, practice management innovators, thought leaders and cutting-edge researchers," according to the magazine. Review of Optometry, another optometry publication, chose Zadnik as one of the two most influential women in optometry during the last century.

While most of her fellow award recipients are practicing optometrists, Zadnik's current forte is research. And it's her dedication to research that sets her apart from the other winners, she says.

And though she doesn't deal with patients directly, what she does day-to-day plays a significant role in how they are treated.

She's involved in two long-term studies, both funded by the National Eye Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

One tackles the mysteries of the development of childhood myopia, or nearsightedness. The other study searches for ways to combat keratoconus.

Keratoconus affects about one out of every 2,000 people, causing the surface of the cornea to bulge and become irregular. It tends to first affect people in their 20s and 30s.

She serves as chair of the Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Keratoconus (CLEK) Study, which is in its sixth year.

"It's a devastating eye disease," she said."About 20 percent of those affected must undergo corneal transplantation."

The myopia study began in 1989 in Orinda, Calif. It evolved to include children in four school districts across the United States, and became known as the Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Ethnicity and Refractive Error (CLEERE) Study. As principal investigator, Zadnik and her colleagues are looking at measures that could possibly prevent myopia from developing.

"We're seeking ways to prevent myopia from ever occurring," Zadnik said. "In the next 20 years, we may see the development of special glasses that a child predisposed to myopia could wear for a short time, or even a medication in the form of eye drops that could ward off nearsightedness."

A recent development from the CLEERE Study found that the use of a night light before a baby's second birthday is not detrimental to that child's future eyesight. Zadnik and her colleagues published their findings in the March 9 issue of Nature. Her report refuted the findings of a year-old study, which claimed that using a night light while a baby slept led to the development of nearsightedness.

"It's findings like this that make the research especially gratifying," Zadnik said."Because this research was done, and because the results are out there for my colleagues, practicing optometrists can take care of and advise their patients in different ways."

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