Students Practice Essential Communication Skills
Erin Harmon piloted Discovery Challenge in her sixth-grade classroom, and the results surprised her.
Last year in a 4-H pilot program called Discovery Challenge, Madison Hardy chose to study Yorkshire pigs. “I’m in 4-H, and every year I showed Yorkshire pigs at the county fair, and I thought it would be a really good topic,” says the seventh grader at Eastern Hancock Middle School.
Discovery Challenge helps elementary schoolers in Indiana gain the mastery and confidence to share topics of interest with their classmates. They also are practicing communication skills needed for future school and workforce success.
Madison learned much more than facts about her show animal. Of the different aspects of her project — selecting the topic, conducting research using reliable sources, writing and rewriting her report, and practicing and presenting her findings — she most liked delivering her presentation.
“Madison did a wonderful job,” says her sixth-grade teacher, Erin Harmon, citing the student’s strong opening and enthusiasm for her topic. Harmon, now an assistant principal at Eastern Hancock Middle-High School, even chose Madison’s work for inclusion in a video presentation to the community.
“At first I was skeptical,” Harmon says. “I thought, ‘Oh gosh, we’re going to ask these kids to write a speech when most of them would rather do anything else than stand up and talk in front of their peers.’”
But her students surprised her. They chose an impressively diverse range of topics to explore, from coding to racehorses to foster care to how to change oil in an RV.
They showed passion and enthusiasm, and, above all, personal growth.
Based on the pilot’s success, Discovery Challenge, led by Bill Decker, Purdue Extension 4-H regional educator, debuted in the third through fifth grades at Eastern Hancock Elementary in Charlottesville, Indiana, and is launching in about 10 other sites statewide.
As Indiana strengthens the standards for skills that future workers will need, such as communications, Purdue Extension responds with programs like Discovery Challenge. The program will “grow” along with each cohort — eventually to 12th grade, with competitions and greater focus on careers.
Program Impact
- 4.CC.6 Create oral presentations that maintain a clear focus, using multimedia to enhance the development of main ideas and themes that engage the audience.
- 5.RC.10 Combine information from several texts or digital sources on the same topic in order to demonstrate knowledge about the subject.
- 3-5.WE.9 Display a variety of skills needed for school, personal, and professional situations.
