Category results for: Season 10


Preparing Together – Are you Ready PA?

Category: Season 10

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Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA)

Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). PEMA helps people prepare for all kinds of emergencies. Representatives hosting the workshop are trained in preparedness and have helped others make easy to follow materials to help you Be Ready.

The Preparing Together – Are you Ready PA? workshop is a unique opportunity for older adults to start (or continue) to plan for what to do during different types of emergencies. The best time to prepare is before something happens. From knowing what to do if you lose electricity in your home to who will take care of your pet if you have to leave your home unexpectedly, this workshop will guide you through how to Be Ready and be safe.

This workshop walks participants through completing the Preparing Together workbook. There are opportunities to pause the presentation to allow a bit more time for participants to complete the pages or discuss their experiences. Participants will leave with a workbook that has a magnet on the back so they can keep it on a refrigerator or somewhere that is easy to get to.

Hosting the program is simple. PEMA will:

  • Ship the free workbooks and a flashlight for each participant directly to your Senior Center, free of charge.
  • Invite an emergency management representative to be with you during a workshop held at your Senior Center (in person or virtually).
  • Provide a flyer to help you promote the program that you can customize for your Senior Center if you choose.

 

To offer this program, complete the materials request form: www.surveymonkey.com/r/Prepare2gether

Depending on availability of an emergency management representative, this program could be provided within two weeks from when you complete the form.

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Did you forget to care for yourself?

Category: Season 10

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Rozalia Horvath, Extension Educator

Rozalia is an Extension Educator in the PennState Extension Food, Families, and Health unit, based in Centre County, PA. She delivers community-based educational programs related to Type 2 diabetes, cooking, healthy lifestyle, cancer prevention, financial literacy for older adults, Alzheimer’s disease, and the Relatives as Parents (RAPP) program.

Cynthia Pollich, Extension Educator

Cynthia is an Extension Educator in the PennState Extension Food, Families, and Health unit, based in Centre County, PA. She delivers community-based educational programs related to Nutrition, Parenting, Stress Trauma Mental Wellness, Food Families & Health, Behavioral Health, Mental Health First Aid and Substance Misuse, Kinship Care, Relatives as Parents Program as well as other topics.

When it comes to your mental health, self-care is just as important as taking care of the people around you. Taking care of yourself will help you to maintain your physical, emotional, and mental self to prevent and manage stress. This talk will offer strategies for reducing stress, often called coping strategies. Learn more about coping strategies, the planned approaches that you choose in response to your own needs and the situation you are in.

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How Big is Space?

Category: Season 10

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Lou Thieblemont, Viking Resident Astronomer

Lou Thieblemont pursued his interest in astronomy throughout his 30-plus-year airline piloting career and into his retirement, serving as the Astronomical Society of Long Island’s program director, the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg’s vice president, and the Museum of Scientific Discovery’s board member. He now produces astronomy-related educational talks for various organizations.

This is a program on the scale of everything – comparing an atom to the scale of the solar system, our Sun to other suns, our Milky Way galaxy to other galaxies. All will be discussed in a light-hearted and entertaining lecture on the scale of everything!

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Food Insecurity among Older Adults and the Emergency Food Safety Net

Category: Season 10

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Kristina P. Brant, Ph.D., Extension Educator

Kristina Brant is an Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology at Penn State. She is a qualitative researcher who studies the family and community dimensions of substance use. Her work has been recognized by the American Sociological Association and the Rural Sociological Society, and it has been funded by multiple organizations including the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Center for Rural Pennsylvania. She also works with Penn State Extension to put research into practice through community-based education and programming in rural Pennsylvanian communities.

Justine Lindemann, Ph.D., Extension Educator

Justine Lindemann is an Assistant Professor of Community Development and Resilience in Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences. She has years of both domestic and international experience working on issues around community and economic development related to food system change.

The reduction of COVID-era benefits such as expanded SNAP payments, continued inflation, and rising food prices have put unprecedented pressure on older adults’ abilities to meet their household food needs. The emergency food network in Pennsylvania, which includes food banks, food pantries, and other local organizations that distribute food, has attempted to expand service delivery to meet these increased needs; however, crucial gaps in funding and food provisioning have widened. In this talk, we will draw on recent research to describe the work of the emergency food network in Pennsylvania, discuss increased food insecurity and the programs that work to address food needs among older adults, and provide more information on the relevance of these programs to listeners.

Additional Resources:

If you need to connect with resources in your community, but don’t know where to look, PA 211 is a great place to start. From help with a utilities bill, to housing assistance, after-school programs for kids, and more, you can dial 211 or text your zip code to 898-211 to talk with a resource specialist for free. Our specialists will listen to your needs and give you information on programs in your community that might be able to help. 

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps Pennsylvanians buy food. People in eligible low-income households can obtain more nutritious diets with SNAP increasing their food purchasing power at grocery stores and supermarkets. Those who are eligible receive an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) ACCESS Card to make food purchases. 

The United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, makes commodity foods available to State Distributing Agencies. States provide the food to local agencies that directly serve the public (food banks, food pantries, soup kitchens, etc.). The local organizations distribute the food to eligible recipients for household consumption or use them to prepare and serve meals in a congregate setting. Recipients of food for home use must meet income and household eligibility criteria. 

The Senior Food Box Program works to improve the health of low-income seniors by supplementing their diets with nutritious USDA Foods. In Pennsylvania, eligible participants include low-income individuals who are at least 60 years old and whose household income is at or below 130 percent of the U.S. poverty level. 

The WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) provide WIC recipients and low-income seniors with fresh, nutritious, unprepared, locally grown fruits, vegetables, and herbs from approved farmers in Pennsylvania. 

Feeding Pennsylvania is the statewide association of nine Feeding America affiliated food banks. The mission of Feeding Pennsylvania is to promote and aid our member food banks in securing food and other resources to reduce hunger and food insecurity across the state and to provide a shared voice on the issues of hunger and food access within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 

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Maps – Strange Facts & Stories!

Category: Season 10

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Lou Thieblemont, Viking Resident Astronomer

Lou Thieblemont pursued his interest in astronomy throughout his 30-plus-year airline piloting career and into his retirement, serving as the Astronomical Society of Long Island’s program director, the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg’s vice president, and the Museum of Scientific Discovery’s board member. He now produces astronomy-related educational talks for various organizations.

Chances are good that map hanging in your elementary school classroom was wrong! In this talk we look at how maps often distort landmasses. Plus, we learn strange facts about maps, and hear how two “best of friends” countries, Canada & the United States, continue to have ongoing territorial disputes over maps!

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News, Views, and Attitudes Part 1: Our Innate Need to Know

Category: Season 10

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Mark Kelley, PhD., Author, Journalist

Mark Kelley, PhD. is a native Pennsylvanian, who taught journalism/mass communications at Syracuse University and the University of Maine, after twenty-five years as a professional journalist.

Media literacy is the ability to critically analyze stories presented in the mass media and to determine their accuracy or credibility. This session introduces our innate need to know what is happening in the world around us and explains how our brain processes the information gathered by our five senses—vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—into messages we can understand. It also explores how we form attitudes (opinions) using the information delivered by our senses, and the impact our attitudes have on our ability to understand messages we receive from mass media.
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News, Views, and Attitudes Part 2: The Development of News Media in The United States

Category: Season 10

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Mark Kelley, PhD., Author, Journalist

Mark Kelley, PhD. is a native Pennsylvanian, who taught journalism/mass communications at Syracuse University and the University of Maine, after twenty-five years as a professional journalist.

The News, Views, and Attitudes series explores the state of the news media and their audiences today, trying to examine whether truth can be found there and, if so, how someone might be more successful in extracting it. This session tracks the development of news media in the United States and examines how well they have communicated the truth–about people, places, and things–that we need to know. It examines efforts by some to discredit certain media and convince audiences they are not telling the truth (fake news). It also notes the advent of the Internet, and the threat it poses by creating a world where everyone can claim to be a journalist.

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News, Views, and Attitudes Part 3: How Mainstream Journalists Do Their Jobs

Category: Season 10

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Mark Kelley, PhD., Author, Journalist

Mark Kelley, PhD. is a native Pennsylvanian, who taught journalism/mass communications at Syracuse University and the University of Maine, after twenty-five years as a professional journalist.

Media literacy is the ability to critically analyze stories presented in the mass media and to determine their accuracy or credibility. This series explores the state of the news media and their audiences today, trying to examine whether truth can be found there and, if so, how someone might be more successful in extracting it. This session explains how mainstream journalists do their jobs and looks at the commercial and ideological pressures under which they work. It examines ethical standards journalists are committed to, and reviews scholarly research attempting to answer the question: Are American journalists biased?

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Ticks of Pennsylvania

Category: Season 10

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Emily Struckhoff, Vector-Borne Disease Program Specialist

Emily is an Education Program Specialist on Penn State Extension’s Vector-Borne Disease Team. She received her B.S. in Biology from Saint Louis University and M.S. in Entomology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At Penn State Extension, Emily develops and delivers programming about vectors, such as ticks and mosquitoes, throughout the state, and she is passionate about helping the people of Pennsylvania protect themselves from vector-borne diseases.

If you have spent time outdoors in Pennsylvania, you have probably encountered ticks. However, did you know that there are many species of ticks found within the state, and that different ticks can cause different diseases? In this presentation, attendees will learn about the most common ticks in Pennsylvania and how to prevent tick bites.

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The Sun!

Category: Season 10

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Lou Thieblemont, Viking Resident Astronomer

Lou Thieblemont pursued his interest in astronomy throughout his 30-plus-year airline piloting career and into his retirement, serving as the Astronomical Society of Long Island’s program director, the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg’s vice president, and the Museum of Scientific Discovery’s board member. He now produces astronomy-related educational talks for various organizations.

This is a light-hearted presentation on how the Sun works. Using everyday terminology, Lou explains how our Sun converts the simplest atom, Hydrogen, into Helium. He also shares how the Sun’s power gives us what we need to sustain life here on earth.

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