Nurturing Wonder and Curiosity in Rialto Unified School District,

We’re excited to highlight our latest episode, “Nurturing Wonder and Curiosity in Rialto Unified School District,” featuring Juanita Chan-Roden, Rialto Unified School District Agent: Science and Career Programs. 

In this episode, Juanita shares how Rialto is centering community-based learning with local partnerships to enhance career exploration and create opportunities for youth to connect with nature and the world around them. Listen to hear how Rialto Unified is cultivating scientific curiosity among youth and creating memories at school that will last for generations to come. 

Listen now to explore these innovative practices and the future of community schools. 

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Joanna: Welcome to Beyond Academics: Connecting Classroom and Community, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of community schools and explore how they're transforming education for students, families, and communities. We are highlighting the voices to inspire and elevate community storytelling. I'm Joanna Marrufo, your host, integrated supports outreach specialist with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, and in today's episode, we're honored to welcome Juanita Chan Rodin, Rialto Unified School District agent, science and career programs with Chavez Huerta Center for Education.

She's gonna be able to share today how she's navigating career pathways in the IE community of Rialto. Juanita Chan Rodin has been with Rialto Unified since 2003. Juanita brings extensive experience in making learning at school as fun as possible, while building programs where students connect wellness and locally relevant environmental issues.

Juanita is building the next generation of critical thinking- thinkers and stewards of the environment with her commitment to leverage community resources to enhance healthy food systems and environmental education in schools. Mrs. Chan Rodin was a member of the science subject matter committee, the team that wrote the California Science Framework adopted by the California State Board in 2016.

She is currently the co-chair of the California Environmental Literacy Initiative, a collective action network that seeks to ensure access to high-quality environmental-based learning for all California TK through 12 students. We're so excited to have you and share your experience, and would love to start by asking you, um, if you don't mind sharing a little bit more about yourself and how you find yourself, um, being in the role that you're in at Rialto Unified.

[00:02:11] Juanita: Sure. So thank you so much for having me here today. It's super exciting to be able to share just a little bit of the journey for my community. I'm gonna just say it like that. So, like you said, my name's Juanita Chan Roden. Um, I started off as an elementary school teacher. So as you know, before I went to college, I thought I wanted to be a medical doctor, and so I went to UC Riverside, and I found out, you know, that's really actually not for me, and I ended up majoring in entomology, which is the study of insects.

And after graduation, I was like, "What am I gonna do with that?" Like, I definitely don't want to be in pest control. But throughout that whole process, I, um, I was tutoring students and working and volunteering and doing all these things. And so I just kind of fell into education, and I recognized, like, hey, this is probably the thing for me.

A funny, like, side note is that, you know, when you're in high school, you take the ASVAB test. All my friends were getting, "You should be a lawyer. You should be a doctor." I got, "You should be a camp counselor." And I didn't even realize that that was, like, one of the ASVAB job offers, you know? But, um, as I look back on my career and what I'm doing right now, I'm like, it was kind of right.

Like, ASVAB was kind of, that was an accurate thing. So, um- I started off, like I said, as an elementary school teacher. I, uh, moved and I was an elementary math coach, and then I started teaching science at the secondary level. And, um, and then from there, the district received a California Math and Science Partnership grant, and I was the project director for that grant, and one of the big focus areas of that grant had to do with, um, project-based learning.

And so as a result, we were looking for different topics to, you know, create projects around, and I started attending all these community, um, community events. I went to town hall meetings. There were, um, there were, you know, the safe- you know, the safety meetings that were happening in communities. And, uh, what I discovered was that a lot of the community issues were really about environmental topics.

And, um, and so we started off and there was a conversation around, um, water contamination, um, and being an EPA, you know, Superfund site, and that was a concern. And as I was at those community meetings, what I recognized is that there was a lot of confusion around what the contaminant was, how they were treating the contaminant, et cetera.

And, um, and so that became one of our topics. Uh, we were deep into a drought, and so that became one of our topics, water conservation. Um, there was a topic about, um, indigenous growing practices, just the thinking about growing food, and that was one of our topics. And it just kind of expanded from there.

And then slowly over time, that, that position turned into a science lead position, and now it's an agent position. So a really interesting kind of meander through, uh, I call it laissez-faire job planning. It was like things just worked out and, and we followed the path of least resistance there.

[00:05:30] Joanna: Wonderful. I love that you come from a science background, right? You applied a little bit of like what you learned, like the science part of it at least, I'm sure like incorporating that in the curriculum and that, um, that thought process of like, um, creating that, that hands-on experience-

[00:05:47] Juanita: Yeah, definitely

[00:05:47] Joanna: that I'm sure you got in college maybe. So can you share a little bit about, about how you, um, um, are creating these opportunities for these environments for youth and how you're really elevating that environmental approach?

[00:06:02] Juanita: 100%. So, science, there's a lot of misconceptions around science, and science has historically been an elitist curriculum, meaning, oh, you belong in science, and maybe you don't belong in science so much.

And so dispelling that as a myth has been the number one thing. First off, everyone is a scientist. You are born a scientist. You know you're a scientist because you are constantly trying to make sense of the world around you. Science is all about curiosity, curiosity about what's going on in the natural world, curiosity about how what's happening in the natural world, um, interacts with human social systems, and how do we make something better?

So there's a lot of initiatives where, uh, what we're really talking about is if you know something, then do something. And our whole role at school is to help kids be interested in topics. What's really so inspiring for me about science is that you don't have to work super hard in order to get the kids interested in science.

You have to find a phenomena. Um, and it's way better if that phenomena is a local phenomena. And, um, when you start talking about local things, students, teachers, administrators, families, they're interested because those local things are directly affecting them in their daily lives. And so that interest, you know, comes in lots of different levels, so you have to meet people where they are.

How interested are you in this topic, and how can we take this topic a little bit deeper? And so as we think about our community-based like learning. All those community-based learning initiatives are things that are affecting every single person who lives in the community. And so when we also think about community, it also, you know, really causes us to think a little bit deeper about culturally relevant teaching and learning because culture, there are all these different intersectionalities of culture, but one piece that brings us all together is that we are all here in this space at this particular time.

We're living together in a particular area. And so how do we take that area and we make it a community? By infusing ourselves in, in, uh, into, um, how to make this space work and function more appropriately for everybody that's living here. So when you start thinking that way, then the environment plays a big role because though there are no natural boundaries between natural systems and human social systems, right?

So if there's a concern around air, it's not a concern just for a certain group of people, it's a concern for everybody around the air, and so that becomes one of the phenomena that students are able to explore. We invite students to explore those. Uh, water topics, water conservation, water usage, consumption, any kind of consumption of goods, that's a science topic because consumption of goods leads into a lot of different areas, paths of travel, transportation, energy for that transportation, the impacts of the energy that we're acquiring in order to move those goods around.

Um, are we supporting local economies? Are we pushing dollars elsewhere? And what are the impacts to the environment that go along with each one of those things And last but not least, how do you keep yourself healthy and your family healthy? Because we wanna actually literally, uh, expand life expectancy for our particular region.

And so when you start talking about expanding life expectancy, we start talking about nutrition, nutrition choices, uh, activity. You know, how often are we getting out and moving? And, um, and also we're talking about some of the misconceptions that go along with all of that, right? And how do we dispel those misconceptions?

Schools can be the unit of change for communities around changing health legacies. And, um, and really when we think about that as our noble purpose, it changes things a little bit. Clearly, we want our students to be able to read, but why? So that they can have a better life experience, right? They can have more opportunities.

And so science, it's like, "Hey, we wanna live a long time. Let me share this reading passage with you that talks a little bit about how we live longer," right? Um, here's some data for you. So the data becomes the numeracy component. We want students to know those three Rs, right? Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

And so it takes that, and it makes it alive for them. It's not, "Well, why do I need to know this? When am I ever gonna use this?" It's, "This is something crucial for you to know, and let me explain to you why it's so important, because this is gonna help you live a more satisfying life. This is gonna help you live a life longer, healthier, and, um, and more, you know, all-inclusive of just economic prosperity.

[00:11:05] Joanna: I love that. I love the connections that you're making across all the sectors, right? 'Cause what I'm hearing is you're not just in- incorporating that, um, how are, how you're able to thrive, right? What makes children thrive, what makes families thrive, and it's really being able to give them access-

[00:11:22] Juanita: Exactly

[00:11:22] Joanna: ... to these tools to, to be able to, um, connect with their community in, in such a way and, and asking questions like, "How can we make our neighborhoods, um, a place to thrive," right?

[00:11:33] Juanita: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:11:34] Joanna: And I think that's exact- I love that. I love that ... because it's all about, um, just building those connections and making it exciting.

[00:11:42] Juanita: And making it fun. That's exactly it. It's like instead of just we're gonna read this article or we're gonna open this book, it's we're gonna go outside today, and when you're outside, I want you to look around, and I want you to tell me what you see.

When you make instruction, um, accessible in that way, every single student, regardless of their preconceived ability level, can access that information. Everybody, everybody can explore the world around them. Even if you can't explore it with sight, you can explore it with- through sound. You can explore it through touch.

You can explore it through smell. All of our senses. You could explore it through taste. And so bringing those things in, I mean, there's a lot of research, neurodevelopment research that goes into... That helps students also transition that knowledge from, um, just temporary knowledge to long-term knowledge.

Um, it, it transfers into our memory centers a lot easier when we engage in things in a multi-sensory kind of way, and that's what science and, uh, environmental science, outdoor explorations, that's what that allows us to do. So, um, so I've found it to be a really great entry point for every student, and as we're talking about inclusive practices, it's naturally inclusive. We don't have to think about it afterwards.

[00:12:59] Joanna: Wonderful. Well, do you mind sharing a little bit about how you created those, uh, partnerships to make those learning environments, um, exciting and relatable to the community that you serve in Rialto?

[00:13:12] Juanita: Yeah, for sure. So it really starts off, so you said it, it's a relationship, so it really starts off with just talking, actually. So, so being here today is another step in that relationship building. Um, and truly, like every activity, event, community event that I went to, it was all about just talking and connecting with people and sharing little bits of things that I thought, um, in the moment intersected with something that they were also passionate about.

My big thing is that in order to have a high-functioning team, everybody can't play the same role. Not everybody's gonna be interested in every single thing, so it's really about compiling a really diverse team. And, um, and so you have to have some ideas here, right? So when we started, uh, really thinking about what were the opportunities that we were gonna go after, um, we had to start with the standards in mind because there are so many things that are so interesting, but if they're not connected to anything that the students are supposed to know, then that's an interesting topic we're gonna have to save for a different day.

So, um, so once we look at all the different grade levels and we've got tons of standards to choose from, then we look for a phenomena that kind of fits those standards. So again, um, when you are at, like, a community event, one of the things that I would do is go to city council meetings. And as you're sitting at city council meetings, you meet some really interesting community members, and very often if they're at a council meeting, that means they're also an active community member.

So striking up a casual conversation, not really thinking that it's gonna go anywhere perhaps other than sharing some ideas in that moment Has always been like a really useful strategy for me. But, um, some of our strongest partners tend to be public agencies. So we have a partnership with West Valley Water District, with Rialto Water District, with San Bernardino Municipal Water, with Veolia North America, um, all around that, those water kind of topics, San Bernardino Valley College.

The partnerships with our local universities, uh, again, completely organic. The longer that you're in a region, the more that you just come upon those people in those education spaces. So Valley, Cal State San Bernardino, UC Riverside, Loma Linda University. We have the California University of Science and Medicine.

That's a partner for us 'cause we're really trying to expand some, um, healthcare pathways. Um, as we start talking about, uh, other environmental topics, there are lots of energy-related philanthropic organization, Kids for Kids, which is, um, somehow connected with SoCal Edison, and also Strategic Energy Innovation, The Energy Coalition.

We now have the, Inland Regional Energy Network, and that, regional network also does lots of work. When we start talking about community philanthropic organizations, um, CCAEJ is also another important partner. They are... I always get their acronym, uh, kind of confused, but it's like the Center for Community and Environmental Justice.

Uh, we also, the Rialto Women's Club, the Senior Center, the Rialto Historic Society. So really just talking to lots of different people. Cemex is a big partner when we start talking about, um, earth and space science. They run our local surface quarry, and they've been a great partner. We do, um, the annual Run Around the Rocks, and it's so fun.

The kids run through the surface quarry. They run around the aggregate piles. They see those big trucks. Families who have lived across from the surface quarry for like 15, 16 years come up to me every year like, "I didn't realize that this was even over here." Um, we're a bedroom community, so that means that a lot of the families that we serve tend to commute long distances to get to work.

And so exploring your local community might not be top priority for a lot of our families, so really working there. Uh, the UC Master Gardeners, the Master Food Preservers, those are another group of people. We do CERT, uh, training, which is the Community Emergency Response Training, so the local police department, the fire department, um, our own inside of our district, our safety officers, the nutrition services team, um, the grounds department, facilities, all those people.

The guy who leads the custodian, they're all on our STEM team because they, um They are active scientists at work every day. They go to work. They tend to plants. Guess what? That's, that's science. You, change your thermostat in your house, that's science. So, so all of those people, all those folks.

We have a partnership with an organization called, uh, Science Technology Education Partnership. This is a, a collaborative that we work with San Bernardino and Riverside County. So, uh, Mr. Gordon Bourns, who is over Bourns Technologies, so when you go to UC Riverside and you see the Bourns School of Engineering, that's Mr. Bourns' family.

And so we have a partnership with them and that entire collaborative, which brings together school districts and community partners from all over San Bernardino, Riverside countywide. Um, Abbott is a partner. Um, and they make medical supplies down in Riverside County. I mean, just tons and tons of partners.

Uh, Phoenix Fire Helmets, uh, as a local manufacturer. Martinez & Turek as an aerospace manufacturer right in our own backyard. I, the list just goes on and on, and people... You know, it's not like they're at the school every day. They step in at times when it's appropriate for them to step in, but they're always there, like, in the background just wishing us well and, and, um, helping us get to new, new places and, and reach out to different people.

"Oh, I have a partner who I think you should meet," and then it becomes just a brief conversation around, "Oh, we have this tool, and we think that this might help," and that leads to new innovation in the classroom and district-wide. So it's really exciting.

[00:19:30] Joanna: I love it. The fact that the school district is aligned with, you know, that love for learning and really pushing the boundaries of what, um, learning looks like, right? Really looking at our backyard and seeing who are those community assets that we can tap into. And then I'm, you know, just hearing from your passion and connections with the relationships, I'm sure they're just as excited... that you are inviting them into the classroom.

[00:19:55] Juanita: I hope so. Exactly. I hope so. I forgot to mention South Coast Air Quality Management District, but there are so many that I'm like, "Oh, do I..." I, I wanna give 'em all a little shout-out. So as they come to mind, I might, "Oh, yeah, and these people, too, 'cause they're great."

[00:20:12] Joanna: Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's wonderful because it shows you, or it shows the listeners, like, the breadth of partners that we may not know exist. Right Right?

[00:20:22] Juanita: Even Thinkwise Credit Union, I think that's how you and I were first introduced, and you're like, "A credit union? How does that fit in with the conversation?" But credit unions are, um, embedded in the community, and so they're interested in what is interesting for the community. And in this particular case, we were talking about food costs and budget that went along with families and how they can expand food dollars.

Well, guess what? That is an environment issue, too. That's a climate resiliency strategy. The local farmers, Farmer Bob and Farmer Anna, we love our farmers so much, and there are not very many farmers because they're getting priced out of our area. But farmers in a community strengthen a community. So, um, so all those, all those so many great folks out there.

[00:21:05] Joanna: I love it. And I can only imagine the impact it has on the kids, right- Yeah ... and the students, and what careers that they're, like exposed to because otherwise they might not have known, you know, these potential, like, opportunities to go work for a water district or, you know-

[00:21:22] Juanita: Exactly

[00:21:22] Joanna: ... Learn more about being-

[00:21:24] Juanita: We-

[00:21:24] Joanna: ...involved in the school.

[00:21:26] Juanita: Yeah Yeah, no, uh, I- we utilize all of our STEM events as career technical recruitment events and introduction, so future-ready recruitment kind of events. We try and also make sure that... Well, we don't even really have to try. Because our partners are all local partners, they all look like members of the community, so kids see themselves reflected in the people that are doing, um, that are leading whatever task it is.

We have a, uh, a wonderful partner, Ms. Ridall, who is a community member. Actually, she started out, she's a retired, uh, rock hounder, so she worked for Cal State San Bernardino, and her husband was a renowned geologist. But she also just lived in our neighborhood, and she started off actually as a noon duty aide.

And somehow there was a conversation that got struck up, and she wasn't considering reaching out to the schools to do any big things, but having someone that has that skill set right in your backyard, how do you not tap on that? So it was a little like, "Hey, do you think you could, um, bring in some of your rocks?

Hey, do you think you could..." And so, and, and s- now she runs full programs for us. And again, um, everybody's like, "There's the rock lady. Oh, Mom." We just had the literacy and numeracy fair, and the kids were coming through and they were making, um, they were making jewelry out of, uh, some rocks that she had brought in, and they were telling their mom, "This is the rock lady.

We came here for a field trip." And, and those conversations, they happen everywhere, at the grocery store, at the Walmart. Like, it, they happen all over, and, um, it's so fun to see. The kids are always surprised. "What? They let you out of the school? I didn't realize" That I was just gonna see you at the park over here. But yeah, it's, it's great

[00:23:21] Joanna: Right, 'cause they're their neighbors, right?

[00:23:23] Juanita: Exactly.

[00:23:24] Joanna: And they're the, the folks that are here to, like, teach them about, you know, rocks and-

[00:23:28] Juanita: Exactly

[00:23:29] Joanna: ... and it just, I love it. I love that they're able to connect with not just the people, but the environment. Like-

[00:23:34] Juanita: Mm-hmm

[00:23:34] Joanna: ... what's around them and how they can see themselves, you know, being, asking those questions, being a scientist or exploring, um, sci- you know, science or technology or whatever.

[00:23:45] Juanita: Yeah. I, we had a group... And we're seeing the fruits of our labor right now. Um, every year we get students, so I really emphasize the science and engineering fair, and people sometimes are always wondering, especially families, "Why do we still have to do this? What is this all about?" And, um, because, you know, projects that gets sent home, sometimes they can be, you know, difficult for families.

We have had lots of roundtable discussions around how to make it less difficult. Currently, we do all of our science and engineering fairs as digital fairs, so that burden of purchasing the trifold board was a burden, and so we removed that burden because it's not about the trifold board and the, you know, and the art and the glue.

It's really about doing the investigation and being curious and, and, um, and, you know, nurturing that curiosity. And so, uh, so we've done that piece, and now at the high school level, we're really seeing much stronger projects. And the whole point, I like to say that science is a team sport. You're not gonna learn everything in that one year.

You need to have repeated exposures every single year, and in high school you'll really see it start paying off. And we had, um, a few students this year who did really impressive projects. One of them did research on the heat island effect in the city of Rialto, and they used geographic information systems in order to map that.

And then, um, from there they earned, like, $250 from CCAEJ, which was a partner at our science fair. They earned that cash, and then they went on and now they have an opportunity to have a fellowship with The Energy Coalition, those girls. I had another student who did a project on, um, the efficacy of solar panels given, you know, dust contaminants on the top of those solar panels.

He won $1,000 from the, um, from the Inland Regional Energy Network. And, um, and we are really pushing the students to participate so that they can get all the way to the International Science and Engineering Fair, and we've had students get there before. Here we have our students are competing with students from Zimbabwe, literally Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, all over the globe.

And one of the things that... One of the reasons why I think this is a really important piece is that it helps for the students to recognize that there's a scientific community out there that's much larger than them. And so they m- might not have thought that something was possible, and all of a sudden it's very possible.

They build in lots of events into the science fair so that students from other countries are actively talking to each other. There's a big dance and a pinning thing where they share pins, and that's super fun. Um, and then students win full-ride scholarships, 60, 70, $80,000 just from participating in the science fair, and, um, and they get their names out there.

We've had a student that was published in a peer-reviewed journal, the Journal of, of Physical Chemistry, um, from working with a partner at UC Riverside. So the opportunities for our community is out there. When we start thinking about, well, why does it make a difference for our third grader to spend time in your community, in your community garden or in your school garden?

It's because that strikes up a little... It's a little seed that's planted in the back of their mind that they come back around to when they're 16, 17, 18, 20 years old. I have students, former students, that are medical doctors that are doing breast cancer research, and they come back and they, "Ms. Chan, you remember when we did that lab in the fifth grade?"

And I'm like, "I can't believe you remember the fifth grade lab." Um, it's important. So it's important. Yeah, I know. The cheering. We should all cheer. Uh, so, um, I just wanna say that, uh, as we really start thinking about community-based learning, that that's how you make your science instruction more real for, for kids and families.

[00:27:46] Joanna: You just gave me so many chills 'cause I feel all of this, 'cause I was also a STEM major in college, and if it wasn't for some of those, like, labs in school or, like, those teachers that made an impact, you know, I wouldn't be here where I am today because I was able to be exposed to those things, and-

[00:28:06] Juanita: Mm-hmm

[00:28:07] Joanna: I can only imagine, like, how they're also paying it forward because of you and the way the work that-

[00:28:13] Juanita: Aw, I hope so.

[00:28:14] Joanna: ... You're doing because they wanna be that mentor, or they wanna start those, like, um, you know, expose more of their community to these, um, opportunities, right? Exactly. And so it just makes me so happy to see that, you know those students come back and they're, they're like, "Yeah, you're the reason why I'm here."

[00:28:33] Juanita: Yeah, they're... That is, that is actually another really big part. We want our students to go off, and we want them to learn and grow, and we want them to come back to the community and recognize that we have a great community. Our little area, Rialto, the Inland Empire, is a great place to live and grow and thrive and bring back their great ideas because we've got a great manufacturing hub.

We are centrally located for logistics. It's a great economic opportunity. In order for areas, and this is just my own little side note, in order for an, uh, for areas to be sustainable, and by sustainable I don't just mean, like, environmentally sustainable, but just economically sustainable, you have to maintain your homegrown talent.

You have to bring folks, you have to entice folks to come back and stay in the community. The goal should not be, "I'm gonna grow up and I'm gonna leave." The goal should be, "I'm gonna grow up, I'm gonna explore, I'm gonna come back, and I'm gonna give back, and I'm gonna invest back in my community because I had a great time growing up here, and I want the next generation to have a great time growing up here."

For me personally, that is part of my story. My mom also worked in Rialto Unified, and so while I've officially worked for them since 2003, unofficially I've worked for them since 1989 because as a teacher I was coming back as a student, as a child, I was coming back, uh, after school and helping my mom with the school play, and walking kids home when it was, it's sort of getting dark outside, walk with them.

Um, all of those things. And so We want them to also have that sense of pride in space because guess what? Pride in space is also a climate resiliency strategy. I- it's not just, "Oh, everything is all messed up, and there's nothing I can do, and actually, I don't even care about it. I'm completely apathetic."

Instead it's, "You know, some stuff could be better, and I think I can do some research and figure out what the issue is, and I think I have an idea as to how to solve that problem. And I can go and talk to you know, speak truth to power and talk to my leaders, my local leaders, and make an, a reasonable, logical argument around why these certain things need to change and what the strategy is, and I can make the community better, stronger, and, and thrive just that much more."

[00:31:07] Joanna: Wow. Well, thank you to your mom and to your you know, the folks that inspired you to stay in education, and, and I'm sure, um, those students that continue to be that light, you know, that guide for you, and, and just the way you've really expanded. I'm sure the school district didn't even realize what they were jumping into until now.

They're like, "Wow, we're gonna be... You know, we're gonna have students representing us internationally. We're gonna have... you know, Rialto's on the map.

[00:31:36] Juanita: Yes. Yes. We are. Yes, we are. And it's all- And our little light is only gonna get stronger, for sure. Um, uh, to that point, it- if we're talking about scalability, um, I think sometimes people can get completely overwhelmed.

"Oh my gosh, you have, you have these keystone events that happen in every grade level. You're do- You're sending kids there. There's investment, et cetera, et cetera. You got partners." It's like, if we're really talking about scalability, none of that stuff happened overnight. It was really just a smattering of, um, of little hotspots that it was like, "Wow, well, this is actually working out really well. If we just had a little bit more emphasis here, then we could scale it and do it for everybody."

And that's what we did, and we started one grade level at a time, one event at a time, one partnership at a time. I never... Well, I guess there have been a couple of times where I'm like, "You think you have a million dollars you can give us?"

But most of the partnerships were not like that. Most of the partnerships were, "Hey, do you have an afternoon that you could volunteer with us?" And, um, and that's how it started. So relationship building and scalability. And then the last thing that I wanna say about that is after you do all that work, you have to write it down because there's so much transiency in school systems, not transiency with student populations, but transiency between leadership and principals, and who's the principal here one day and the next day and, you know, uh, upper level leadership all the way down.

Who's the noon duty aide here in the, this year versus 10 years ago? People are moving, and if you don't have it written down, it's really easy to lose, uh, lose traction and lose institutional knowledge over what it is that we've done in the past and what successes that we've had. So, um, doing little things to, uh, to kind of pinpoint times in, uh, in time, like actual moments in time, um, are hugely valuable.

Write yourself a little note, make a little chart, have those calendars that you can go back to, um, in multiple years. Do things like this. You know, join a podcast. So just that little moment in time, um, somebody can go back to it, and there's an archive somehow

[00:34:05] Joanna: Yes. Awesome. Um, I know Rialto Unified School District is a leader in STEAM education and has received a lot of recognition, so I'd  just wanna hear more about the, the recognitions you received.

Um, and I know it's the RUSD STEM CARES initiative-

[00:34:26] Juanita: Mm-hmm

[00:34:26] Joanna: ... so I wanted to help, help, um, expand that or, like, elevate that for you.

[00:34:31] Juanita: Sure. So, uh, we have tons of different STEM... Um, I'm a, I'm a big one on, um, on... What are those called? Uh, with the, with all the letters. You know what I'm talking about, uh, where... STEM CARES is a-

[00:34:46] Joanna: Acronym

[00:34:47] Juanita: acronym. Thank you. I'm a big one on acronyms. I love a good acronym. So, STEM CARES, of course everybody knows what STEM stands for, science, technology, uh, engineering, and math. And CARES stands for cultivates active responsible environmental stewards. And, uh, and that is the crux of it. If you know something, do something to show some level of caring.

Uh, we also have another one called STEM I AM, which stands for STEM in industry and advanced manufacturing. We have tons of them. Um, and it's STEM Rocks, STEM in robotics and computer science. So acronyms are my jam. Uh, but, um, when we think about STEM CARES, STEM CARES has really been excellently received.

Um, so we were the US Department Green Ribbon Schools official awardee that went to Washington, DC, I think it was 2019, but it could've been 2018. 2018, 2019. Um, so that was a national recognition, and since then, um, individual school sites have won the California Green Ribbon Awards multiple school sites.

So we have 19 elementary schools, and I think of our 19, 13 have been awarded the honor individually. And, uh, what that means is that they've had to write their own applications, and not only could they list some of the district-wide initiatives, but they also had to note how they were really making this their own.

We've also, you know, we've rebranded total schools, so now Morris Elementary School is now Morris Environmental Literacy Academy. Um, and so a lot of support there. We've got multiple elementary school... I mean, sorry, middle schools and, uh, our high schools that have also earned that designation. So over half of our individual schools have earned that designation from the state of California as well.

We've got some, um, of course some Blue Ribbon schools. Those ones are the schools that are solely just for academic purposes, but those science connections have really helped with, um, with some of theirs as well. But that California Green Ribbon Schools recognition is an interesting one, because it doesn't just speak to, um, student achievement and programming, although that is one of the major pillars.

It also, um, talks a lot about the business services side, and the business services side is something that we don't talk a lot about in most K12 systems. But recognize that in most cities, your school district is probably one of your largest employers, and they're definitely some of your largest land managers.

So if you're thinking about the role that schools are playing, schools are playing a direct role. Whether you have kids or not, they are playing a direct role in how your community overall is functioning. And so two of the pillars really focus on, one pillar focuses a lot on our carbon footprint and making sure that we are reducing our energy consumption and reducing our waste and water usage, et cetera.

And then the other one has to do with health and wellness, so really focusing on nutrition and being a nutrition hub. And at Rialto, we take that very seriously. So I noticed at the beginning you said connecting classrooms and communities. In Rialto, we say connecting classrooms, cafeterias, and communities, um, so that the kids recognize they're learning all the time, even when they're in the cafeteria.

So, um, great. We've earned gold in multiple categories, silver in, uh, at multiple school sites, and it's been, it's been a great process, and we every year look at it as a way to reaffirming our commitment to the community around our green, um, our green commitments and, um, and our overall goals.

[00:38:44] Joanna: Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that. Um, how do you incorporate nutrition education and wellness in the classroom? I know you shared a little bit about, you know, the cafeteria, like how-

[00:38:55] Juanita: Mm-hmm

[00:38:55] Joanna: ... that's a huge part of, you know, a commitment to learning and even being a part of, like, connecting where food comes from.

[00:39:02] Juanita: Exactly.

[00:39:03] Joanna: So do you mind sharing a little bit of, like-

[00:39:04] Juanita: Yeah, of course. So like I said, it started off with that California Math and Science Partnership Grant and, uh, and project-based learning. And so one of the things that we started doing, um, there's always, there has been for a little while another grant that the nutrition services team always gets for us, and it's the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.

Um, what we notice is that, uh, if you're looking at our public health data as a county, countywide what you'll notice is that, um, there are areas of chronic disease and preventable premature death that occur around the topics of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity, but obesity matched with malnutrition.

So I wanna just emphasize that because we're not saying that our kids are, like, out here emaciated. Our kids look like they're just, oh, like, little chubby kids, regular kids that you would see. But the nutrient value of the things that they're eating is poor. So if a student eats a bag of Takis, let's just say, most likely you're getting about 12,000 calories, but those calories, we would call those empty calories because they really don't have any nutritional value, right?

They're fried, so a lot of those calories come from the oil, et cetera. Um, our palates or our tongues themselves get used to that type of food, and as you're growing up, if that's the type of food that you are regularly consuming, then your palate gets very used to high-salt, high-fat, high-sugar foods. And so when we were doing this Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, we were offering students these healthy options, but the students weren't tasting them, but they weren't consuming them all the way.

Like, taste one bite and then throw them away. Um, how did we determine that was we looked at our waste streams. So we did that both in that fresh fruit and vegetable thing. We also looked at it at school lunches. Um, there's a salad bar all the time, but how much of that is actually getting wasted? We started weighing our trash.

And what we, uh, and then we started having conversations around it. Those conversations led to, um, full-on, um, lessons or units of instruction around... Actually, it moved people out into the garden spaces. Um, kids didn't realize that, you know, I had a student tell me, a fifth grader tell me, that apples were grown when all the leaves on the tree bundled up real tight together, and then those leaves turned into an apple.

And I was like, "Oh, no." We're, we're way separated from our food systems, and that's not good And so, uh, we started growing food with kids, kale and different things. And what we discovered is that tomatoes, cucumbers. What we stud- uh, what we discovered was that when students grew the fruits and vegetables, or they saw the fruits and vegetables growing, or they went to the farm where the fruits and vegetables were growing, they didn't just taste the fruits and vegetables, they ate them.

They ate all of them. We, we did an experiment at one school site. They replaced all the lettuce with kale because the students had grown kale at that school, and there was zero waste from the, from the salad line. Unprecedented. It was like, "How did you get the kids to eat kale?" There was no magic.

It was really just, "Hey, you grew this kale." And they were excited about growing the kale. So, um, we are morphing that into, um, conversations around MyPlate, and we're trying to put those conversations at the primary grade levels, and we're trying to ensure that everyone has access to that. The gardens and groves are not just a singleton, oh, after-school program, but every single student, there are labs that are required labs that push all classrooms out to those spaces so that it's kind of trying to be built into the culture.

It's a fight every year. It's, it's a struggle trying to make sure that people, you know, recognize the why that we're doing this. Also, um, building in those partnerships with our local farmers, so we bring in farmers markets into at least the elementary schools, um, so that the kids have that experience.

The third graders all go on a field trip to our community farmers market. We talk about, like I said, MyPlate and, um, eating five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Um, and then as it matriculates up to the high school kids, we have a Youth Climate Action Summit every year, and there are, um, there...

We talk a little bit about the climate and the the carbon requirements that go into meat production and different food productions, and then the students do a taste test, and they provide that information back to nutrition services. There's a nutrition services team of students. They call it SNAC, the Student Nutrition Advisory Committee.

And, um, so students are able to try, um, try different things that they might not have tried before because nutrition services has, um, nutritional guidelines that they have to follow, um, that fall very far outside of what the normal nutrition guidelines are. Not the nutrition guidelines, but the normal eating practices of a lot of, uh, of a lot of students and families, especially in respect to whole grains and to the sugar content, to the salt content, and that changes the flavor.

So you have to do some instruction around why does the food that you eat at school taste a little bit different than the food that you eat at home? And what are some other strategies? So really thinking about salsas and, um, peppers and things like that that add flavor without adding a whole bunch of extra salt or, um, salt mostly, or oil.

So, um, some of- those are some of the strategies that we're utilizing in order to incorporate nutrition education more deeply into what we do.

[00:44:48] Joanna: Wonderful. I love the taste testing, you know, so it's like a, a hands-on approach with the students and the nutrition staff-

[00:44:55] Juanita: Mm-hmm

[00:44:56] Joanna: ... so that they're able to really-

[00:44:57] Juanita: And the ground staff

[00:44:58] Joanna: And the ground staff

[00:44:59] Juanita: 'Cause they go outside.

[00:44:59] Joanna: Oh, uh, yeah. And then, you know the addition of bringing in the school gardens, right?

[00:45:07] Juanita: Yeah.

[00:45:07] Joanna: Like, connecting what they're growing to what's in the cafeteria, what they're eating.

[00:45:12] Juanita: Because at the end of the day, what we're eating is always coming from somebody's garden space. So the, the more we know about that process, the more we can empower ourselves to make better choices.

[00:45:22] Joanna: Yes, and connects the environment to you-

[00:45:25] Juanita: Exactly

[00:45:26] Joanna: ... every day. We're all connected to the, the environment and the food-

[00:45:29] Juanita: Precisely

[00:45:30] Joanna: ... the food, um, system All right. Well, with that I wanted to open it up and ask if there's any advice you would like to, um, impart to our schools that may be starting that STEAM, um, education journey or even that STEAM, um, compassionate, you know-

[00:45:48] Juanita: Yeah

[00:45:48] Joanna: care that you mentioned, the CARES acronym.

[00:45:51] Juanita: I think, uh, I think the very first thing is do something. So it's easy to be very overwhelmed. That's my first piece of advice. Do something. Um, it's easy to be overwhelmed and try and do too many things, and, and this is true for, you know, for climate policies as well.

People are like, "Oh, the straws. That's not gonna do anything." It's not gonna save the whole world, but it is gonna do something. So find something that you can commit to and do that thing. Recognize that schools are a unit of change for the community, and so really try and expand your thinking to, well, what would be good for the school to what would be good for the community?

Because most likely if you find something that would be good for the community, it's gonna be good for the school as well. And, um, and then the last thing is make a plan. So write it down. Make your intentions public. A lot of times it's easy to get distracted in school systems. "Oh, I, we were gonna do this," but if you've said it out loud in public to somebody, you're more likely to follow through on that thing.

So do something. Find something that you can commit to. Really think about overall net community benefit, and then let that be your guide, and then make some public statements about things that you're gonna try to do, and then follow those things through. And then slowly over time you will take very small bites out of a very large elephant, and you'll be able to see, uh, the fruits of your labor really, um, expand exponentially.

[00:47:26] Joanna: Wonderful. Thank you so much for those pearls of wisdom. And I'm so happy that you're here. You just have so much wisdom and experience to impart to our community who are just wanting to really make learning fun and make it relatable and accessible, and bringing in that wellness and environmental sustainability element in the classroom and beyond. So I just want to say thank you so much for being here.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you for joining us at Beyond Academics: Connecting Classroom and Community, where we dive deep into the stories from people who are making a difference in school. They are the change makers who bring community schools to life by making an impact for families and children by meeting their needs.

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