Shelby Myers-Verhage (MAT ‘93) listened as a seventh grader at Sigourney Junior High School told her about the noise at a tractor pull.

“You can go to those things because they’re fun,” Myers-Verhage told the student, “but take your ear plugs with you.”

That’s the point of a project Myers-Verhage is working on with Greg Flamme, an assistant professor with the University’s Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology. The pair is trying to help rural school kids avoid hearing loss. The project, Iowa Hearing Loss Prevention (I-HeLP) stems from a study in the early 1990s that showed a high rate of hearing problems in rural Iowa.

Myers-Verhage joined the project in the fall of 2002 as a Research Coordinator. She wrote the curriculum that takes the research from the lab into the classroom. Flamme said she’s an essential part of the project. “If the program doesn’t fit into the schools, it won’t be used,” he said. “Shelby’s experience and knowledge of schools have been invaluable.”

Even though Myers-Verhage said between 25 and 45 percent of 18 to 27 year olds have permanent hearing loss, most schools don’t discuss hearing loss prevention.

“It may come up in a paragraph in a science or health textbook, but the teachers we’ve talked to often don’t cover that,” Myers-Verhage said. “The topic is usually overlooked.”

Rural schools are the focus of I-HeLP because noise associated with work and hobbies in those areas, such as tractors and hunting, put rural residents at a higher risk of damaging their hearing, Flamme said.

“Our primary message is to keep away from noise, but if you must be around noise, use hearing protection,” Myers-Verhage said.

Myers-Verhage and Flamme visited three seventh-grade and two fourth-grade classrooms this fall to try out the curriculum and see if it would help curb hearing loss.

They left ear plugs for students to take if they thought they’d need them and gave them bookmarks that outlined what kinds of noise are safe and what noises might cause damage. They tested them for hearing problems this fall and will test them again next year. All together, they visited five different rural school districts.

The pair visited Sigourney Junior High School teacher Shannon Webb’s seventh-grade science classroom. “I think the kids really enjoyed it,” Webb said. “I don’t think they actually realized what can happen if they don’t protect their ears.”

Myers-Verhage, who taught for eight years at College Community Schools in Cedar Rapids and was a College of Education Teacher-in-Residence for two years, said she hopes to create a program that teachers will find useful and easy to do on their own. “We want to be helpful, rather than be a burden. We didn’t want it to seem like, ‘Here’s another thing teachers have to do’,” she said.

The aim of the project is to develop a curriculum that can be used by teachers statewide. It’s funded through a 3-year $150,000 grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

Myers-Verhage said she never imagined she’d use her teaching degree to facilitate scientific research. “But it’s a great way to structure the project,” she said. “Greg knows so much about audiology and technology, and I understand what students can handle and what will be our most effective use of time in the classroom.” –by Heather McElvain