Charles City 7th-graders learn about community engagement initiatives

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

It’s all about “big ideas.”

Middle school students from Okoboji visited middle school students in Charles City on Wednesday, and shared some of those ideas.

The students are part of a group called “No Boundaries,” which was modeled after Iowa BIG. It’s an 8th-grade program similar to Iowa BIG North, where students connect with business partners in the community.

Community business and other entities pitch projects to the students that they believe are important, but that they might not have the time and resources to complete.

“We love the relationship we’ve built with Charles City and the Iowa BIG schools,” said Becky Reints, one of two facilitators of Okoboji’s No Boundaries middle school program. “There’s a common language that the students in Charles City and our students know. Hopefully we can inspire some big ideas and get some really awesome projects started here.”

The Okoboji students teamed up with 10 Charles City students Wednesday and visited the new Iowa BIG North space in New Hampton. They then came back and gave a presentation to all of Charles City’s 7th graders, and then the 7th graders separated into small groups and workshopped ideas.

The small groups collaborated and brainstormed, and then presented the ideas to the larger group.

“We’re learning how we can take some of those ideas and implement them into what we do here in Charles City,” said Iowa BIG North’s Charles City facilitator Donna Forsyth.

In 2016, the Charles City, New Hampton, Osage and Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock school districts were awarded a $25,000 grant to launch Iowa BIG North, which was inspired by Iowa BIG in Cedar Rapids. BIG is an acronym for “Big Ideas Group.”

Student participants collaborate on solutions to problems they identify themselves or that are brought to them by the community and businesses.

Although CCHS hasn’t been actively participating in the Iowa BIG consortium this year, New Hampton High School still has.

Rients said she hoped the presentation and workshops Wednesday would help inspire the Charles City students to become involved in more community engagement initiatives.

“We love having the students talk about their experiences and their passions,” Rients said. “It’s really cool to see them so excited about learning.”

Forsyth said that she thought the workshops were helpful to both students and teachers at both schools.

“It’s a win-win for everybody,” said Forsyth. “They get to come in and work on their presentation skills, and we get to benefit from listening, learning and possibly implementing some cool things that are being done elsewhere.”