This RAPID project will study connections between children's hygiene habits and learning about science, such as the science of disease transmission. It builds upon findings from the investigator's prior research of parent-child interactions observed in children's museums and will extend this research to home settings. This research will focus on understanding how goal-setting, whether it is parent-directed, child-directed, or jointly-directed, affects children's engagement with a handwashing activity and their subsequent learning about handwashing behavior and preventing the spread of disease. More specifically, the intent is to examine how goal-setting during an interactive demonstration between parents and children relates to children's recollection of the activity and their handwashing behavior afterwards. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.
During a pandemic, it is vital that children establish good hygiene habits and understand the importance of handwashing for the prevention of disease transmission. What is most important is that young children wash their hands frequently and follow good hygiene habits, such as using soap, when doing so. This study examines the role parents might play in engaging children to wash their hands. The project team has developed a short 10 minute intervention that parents and children can participate in while using everyday household items. Utilizing remote technology, parents and children will be guided through this intervention while video recording their behavior. Families will be presented with a structured activity for parents and children to participate in together. This activity will be focused on how handwashing, and particularly the use of soap during handwashing, helps prevent the spread of germs. Parent-child interactions will be coded using schemes for goal setting that the investigator developed in prior work. Directly after their participation and one week later, children will be asked to reflect on the activity to understand what they remember about it, and to understand whether they have encoded the importance of handwashing for preventing the transmission of disease. Parents will also be asked to track their children's handwashing to see whether aspects of these reflections, as well as individual differences in how parents and children interact during the activity, promote better engagement with handwashing. The data generated will allow researchers to develop best practices for interventions centered on children's handwashing and the prevention of disease transmission. Knowing such practices is critical for reintegrating children into social settings such as schools and children's museums.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
With the world in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, children are often having or expressing worries and fears. Their caregivers -- parents and those who are providing direct care for children -- are seeking trusted sources of information to help them explain this disease and help ease children’s worries. This resource guide reflects some of the work of our current NSF-funded research study (NSF#2029209) about the communication needs of children and families during the pandemic, seeking to understand how they are supported in having conversations about the coronavirus and pandemic-related
With the world in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, families are seeking trusted and engaging sources of scientific information to help their children understand prevention, transmission, treatment, and many other topics related to COVID-19 in an effort to ease children’s fears. The goal of our NSF-funded RAPID research study is to understand how children’s science podcasts, as well as other educational products, can provide families with information to help ease children’s worries during a pandemic by increasing children’s understanding of pandemic-related science concepts, empowering
With the world in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, families are seeking trusted and engaging sources of scientific information to help their children understand prevention, transmission, treatment, and many other topics related to COVID-19 in an effort to ease children’s fears. The goal of our NSF-funded RAPID research study is to understand how children’s science podcasts, as well as other educational products, can provide families with information to help ease children’s worries during a pandemic by increasing children’s understanding of pandemic-related science concepts, empowering
With funding from NIH SEPA, OMSI is creating a mid-sized travelling exhibition that will promote public understanding of neuroscience research and its relevance to healthy brain development in early childhood.
The purpose of this report is to support the project team by assessing the extent to which the prototype activities, content, and labels tested contributed to visitor engagement, understanding, confidence, and future use of one or more strategies outlined. It was important to the project team that the exhibition be developed in collaboration with the communities for whom it is
This RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the AISL program in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The goal of this award is to advance understanding of how children's science podcasts can provide families with information to help ease children's anxiety and fears during a pandemic. The project's hypothesis is that through listening to Brains On! coronavirus-related episodes, children will increase their understanding of science concepts related to the pandemic. As they gain this understanding, it is predicted that their overall fear and anxiety about the pandemic will diminish, they will feel empowered to ask pandemic-related questions and will engage in more science- based conversations with their family members. The project will develop three Brains On! podcast episodes focused specifically on the COVID-19 pandemic for kids aged 5 to 12 and their families. The research questions include:
How and to what extent do Brains On!'s coronavirus-based episodes help children and their families understand and talk about science-related pandemic topics? What kind of conversations are sparked by these episodes?
What kinds of questions do children have after listening to the Brains On! coronavirus episodes and what are the reasons for their questions? What can the questions tell us about the impact of listening on kids' science engagement and learning?
What resources do parents need to answer children's questions and help them understand science topics related to the pandemic?
This project is a collaboration between a media producer, Minnesota Public Radio and researchers at The Science Museum of Minnesota. Brains On! already has a large listening audience, with 7 million downloads a year, and more than 200,000 unique listeners a month and these new episodes are likely to increase listenership further. The research findings will be quickly disseminated to a wide range of audiences that can immediately apply the findings to create media and other coronavirus-related educational resources for families.
The PI's prior NSF funded projects have found that previous Brains On! podcasts with a range of STEM content increase the number and sophistication of the science questions children ask and lead to science-based conversations with family members. This project will study the impacts in relation to a singular topic, COVID-19. Three online surveys of Brains On! listeners (families with children ages 5 - 12 years old) will be conducted. The first survey to be conducted as soon as the project begins will focus on parents reflecting on what information is needed at that stage of the pandemic. Two additional listener surveys will occur immediately after new COVID-19 podcast episodes are released. These surveys will ask content-specific questions to understand how well the episode conveys that information to children and their families, what conversations were sparked from the content, and what additional information needs families have. Prior to administering each of the three surveys, video-based think-aloud interviews with 10 families will test and revise survey questions.
Survey participants will be recruited using language in Brains On! episodes, social media, website, and newsletters. A sample size of around 1,000 for each of the surveys is planned (based on a 95% confidence interval and ±3% sampling error). Analyses will include descriptive statistics and thematic coding of open-ended survey questions. Subgroup samples, when large enough will look at differences in responses by demographic variables (e.g. race/ethnicity, household income, highest level of education in the household, an adult in the household with a STEM career, gender of child, geographic location). The researchers and Brains On! staff will work together to identify how the findings can be applied to the development of subsequent coronavirus-related episodes and shared with the ISE field to further support families? education and information needs.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
The primary objective of this study is to document how people learn the science of the COVID-19 pandemic in real time, how they activate this scientific knowledge towards informed decision making, and how these processes change over time. This study is intended to produce additional insights on how such learning is shaped by equity concerns and contextual factors. For example, researchers will document how the ways in which people learn the science of COVID-19 are mediated by the sources of information they have access to and leverage, as well as what supports them in doing so. The research will further document how people leverage their understandings of COVID-19, alongside other forms of knowledge and concerns in their decision-making. This study may serve a crucial role in aiding the public understanding of where structural points of informational failure might occur. It may also reveal where and how the public engages or resists community action strategies to mitigate spread and suffering through when, how and why they gather, share, and make sense of scientific data. This RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the AISL and ECR programs in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
This research will draw upon a conceptual framework of consequential learning and a methodological framework of narrative inquiry. Sixty participants in Lansing, Michigan and Seattle, Washington will participate over the course of one year in cyclical interviews, focus group conversations and experience sampling approaches. Documents and resources named and used by the participants in their learning will be collected and analyzed. Attention will be paid to science learning in the following areas as the primary focus: a) the science of SARS-CoV-2 and the relationship between virus and disease, b) viral transmission, and c) origination, replication and spread. A key focus will also be how people use scientific data and evidence-based explanations when developing understandings and making decisions with respect to the pandemic. This research is urgent and timely because the COVID-19 pandemic is projected to occur in multiple waves over approximately 18 months. Insights may produce basic understanding about rapid science learning, policy strategies, school-based practices and resources for use within current and future waves. Socioscientific crises differentially impact people, with effects felt more significantly by vulnerable people. Thus, this study will address the urgent call for investigation into factors and experiences of low-income individuals and families who are trying to educate themselves on continually changing data during an international health crisis.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
This RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the AISL program in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. COVID-19 presents a national threat to the health of children and families, presenting serious implications for the mental and physical health of children. Child development scientists have already warned of increasing stress levels among the U.S. child population, especially those in low-income families of color. In addition, Latino children are disproportionately impoverished, and benefit from culturally relevant information. Parents and caregivers need to be armed with effective science-based strategies to improve child prospects during this global crisis. Harnessing well-established partnership (including with local TV news partners and parent-serving organizations) strengthens the potential for broad impacts on the health and well-being of children and families during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic persists, widely disseminating accurate research-based strategies to support parents and families, with a focus on low-income Latino parents, is crucial to meeting the needs of the nation's most vulnerable during this global crisis. The award addresses this urgent need by producing research-based news videos on child development for distribution on broadcast television stations that reach low income Latino parents. The videos will communicate research-based recommendations regarding COVID-19 in ways that are relatable to Latino parents and lead to positive parenting during this pandemic. A "how to" video will also be produced showing parents how to implement some of the practices. Project partners include Abriendo Puertas, the largest U.S. parenting program serving low-income Latinos, and Ivanhoe Broadcasting.
Research questions include: 1) What information do parents need (and potentially what misinformation they are being exposed to)? 2) What are they sharing? 3) How does this vary geographically? 4) Can researchers detect differences in public engagement in geographic areas where TV stations air news videos as compared to areas that don't? This project will use data and communication science research strategies (e.g. natural language processing from online sites where parents are asking questions and sharing information) to inform the content of the videos and lead to the adoption of featured behaviors. Data from web searches, public Facebook pages, and Twitter posts will be used to gain a window into parents' main questions and concerns including information regarding hygiene, how to talk about the pandemic without frightening their children, or determining veracity of what they hear and see related to the pandemic.
This organic approach can detect concerns that parents may be unlikely to ask doctors or discuss in focus groups. Methodologically, the researchers will accomplish this by natural language analysis of the topics that parents raise; the words and phrases they use to talk about specific content; and any references to external sources of information. Where possible, the researchers will segment this analysis by geography to see if there are geographical differences in information needs and discourse. A research brief will share new knowledge gained with the field on how to respond to national emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, using local TV news and reinforcement of messages across contexts. The findings from this award will provide a knowledge base that can be utilized to better inform responses to national emergencies in the future. By broadly disseminating these findings through a research brief, the project?s innovative research will advance the field of communication science.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
This RAPID award is made by the AISL program in the Division of Research on Learning in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. COVID-19 presents a national threat to the health of children and families, presenting serious implications for the mental and physical health of children. This project addresses two critical aspects of the impact on COVID-19 on families: (a) the large-scale shift to at-home learning based on nationwide school closures and (b) the critical need for families to understand the basic science of virus transmission and prevention. To address these needs, the project team will develop a series of STEM activities for families with children in grades K-6 that make use of items readily available in most households. The activities help children and their families learn about viruses, virus transmission, and virus prevention while also developing other STEM-skills, particularly related to engineering design. Importantly, the project team also considers the emotional well-being of children and families during the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Led by researchers from Indiana University and Binghamton University, and experts in educational resource development from Science Friday (a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the public's access to science and scientific information through podcasts, digital videos, original web articles, and educational resources for teachers and informal educators) the project is further supported by partnerships with the New York Hall of Science, Amazeum (AR), the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (ME), The Tech Museum of Innovation (CA), the Indiana State Museum, and Kopernik Observatory Science Center (NY). The activities will be shared with families through live-streamed web sessions that introduce the activity, give tips to adults for facilitation, share a bit on related STEM careers and engage the audience in dialog about the activity and their current experiences. Versions of the sessions that are recorded will be edited and include closed-captioning and subtitles in multiple languages before being posted on platforms such as YouTube.
This project uses a design-based research approach to investigate strategies for enabling families to actively engage with STEM while home and away from their traditional institutions during a period of crisis. The research components focus on:
Engagement: How do families engage in the activity tasks, in terms of processes, practices, and use of resources? Who participated, why did they choose to participate and how did they engage (including modification of activities)? What barriers prevented interested families from completing activities?
Impact: How did the activities change participants? feelings of: a) efficacy around STEM and b) connectedness/ isolation, during extended school closures?
The Activities: Which activities had the greatest uptake? How many activity ideas were submitted by those outside of the team? What was the age/content focus of each of these activities?
The researchers will analyze social media data (including data on resource downloads and use of tracked links, YouTube and Facebook views, comment threads during livestreams and Likes/Shares/Follows across social media sites) to refine and improve the activities and programming as well as learn about the ways families are engaging in the activities. The researchers will solicit survey responses from website visitors to gather more information on participants, why they participated, how they engaged and how the activities impacted participants? efficacy around STEM and their feelings of connectedness or isolation. The researchers will also ask participants to submit images, videos and text that describes what they are making and their process along the way. Analysis of this data would lead to insights on how children and families use STEM language and practices; how children and families ask questions and use COVID-19-related and other information as part of their design work; and how ideas are formed, shaped and refined as families engage in design and making. While the project focuses on a unique opportunity to collect data on family STEM engagement as families respond to disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, this project and its findings will provide a knowledge base that can be utilized to inform future responses to national emergencies, other work aimed at promoting family learning at home, and approaches to supporting children in open-ended problem solving.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Escape rooms are an engaging and increasingly popular game format in which a team of players is “locked” in a room and challenged to solve a series of narrative-embedded puzzles encoded in the room’s artifacts in order to “escape” within a set period of time. The University of California Museum of Paleontology, with partners University of Kansas Natural History Museum and the California Academy of Sciences, aim to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a “serious game” (i.e., a game designed for a purpose other than entertainment) based on the escape room model. Our traveling/loanable pop-up escape room and associated extension activities will engage diverse families (ages 8 and up) in museums and libraries in solving a biomedical mystery that teaches fundamental concepts in biology, engages critical-thinking and collaboration skills, and stimulates interest in biomedical careers. STEM Escape will address NGSS-aligned content central to medical research – in particular, it will communicate basic concepts regarding evolutionary relationships, a topic with relevance to a wide variety of medical applications, such as determining the source of emerging infectious diseases, tracking the progression of disease within a host, and identifying new medicines. The project is designed to lay the groundwork for extended family interactions surrounding scientific content and biomedical careers. The immersive game will be supplemented by a set of solo and docent-led follow-up activities that reinforce key concepts and emphasize connections between players’ experience in the game and biomedical research careers. Learners will also receive takeaway media (e.g., activity book) that highlights a diverse set of NIH-funded researchers whose work directly relies on evolutionary patterns/processes. Caregivers will have the option of receiving a follow-up email with free at-home activities. The themed inflatable pop-up room will be wheelchair-accessible and all materials will be bilingual in English and Spanish. The STEM Escape experience will be developed with and for the diverse audiences visiting urban/suburban natural history museums and libraries, as well as with and for rural families, whom we will reach through rural libraries. The project will also produce and evaluate a suite of support materials to facilitate institutional adoption and deployment of the experience. Nine host sites across the country have committed to hosting the room (with an additional two sites in the planning stages), and after the life of the grant, the room will continue to make an impact as a rentable traveling exhibit. Long term, this project will improve the public’s understanding of medically relevant evolutionary content, increase interest in biomedical careers, particularly among underserved groups targeted, and improve our understanding of how immersive games can be used to serve educational objectives.
Hopa Mountain, working in partnership with Montana State University (MSU), will develop innovative and coordinated opportunities for Montana youth to strengthen their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills and knowledge while preparing them for higher education and careers in health sciences. The overall project goal of HealthMakers is to support rural and tribal youth’s interest and exposure to careers in the sciences while giving them the skills and resources to play leadership roles in increasing healthy family practices in their homes and communities. HealthMakers will achieve meaningful impacts annually through four strategies: (1) Health-focused college preparation programs for 50 teens; (2) Summer academic enrichment programs for 20 teens; (3) Community-based science literacy events for 2,000 children and their families, and (4) Professional development for educators, community members, and parents. Hopa Mountain and MSU will engage youth, educators, community leaders, and parents in training opportunities through HealthMakers. Participants will take part in community-based workshops, college tours, and summer institutes led by MSU faculty, healthcare professionals, Hopa Mountain staff, and their peers. Through these strategic aims, HealthMakers will help create a stronger workforce and inspire students to pursue careers in the sciences.
PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE:
HealthMakers will support the development of health-related outreach and college preparation programs and training resources to create a better-informed workforce for Montana and inspire students to pursue careers in the sciences. These strategic aims and deliverables benefiting rural and tribal families and children, will help create a stronger workforce and inspire students to pursue careers in the sciences. Working together, Hopa Mountain and Montana State University will support rural and tribal youth’s interest and exposure to careers in the health sciences while giving them the skills and resources to play leadership roles in increasing healthy family practices in their communities.
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), in collaboration with neuroscientists at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), museum professionals, and community partners, proposes to create a 1,000 to 1,500-square-foot traveling exhibition, accompanying website, and complementary programming to promote public understanding of neuroscience research and its relevance to healthy brain development in early childhood. The exhibition and programs will focus on current research on the developing brain, up to age 5, and will reach a national audience of adult caregivers of young children and their families, with a special emphasis on Latino families. The project will be developed bi-culturally and bilingually (English/Spanish) in order to better engage underrepresented Latino audiences. The exhibition and programs will be designed and tested with family audiences.
The exhibition project, Interactive Family Learning in Support of Early Brain Development, has four goals that primarily target adult caregivers of children up to age 5:
Foster engagement with and interest in neurodevelopment during early childhood
Enhance awareness of how neuroscience research leads to knowledge about healthy development in early childhood
Inform and empower adult caregivers to enrich their children’s early learning experiences
Reach diverse family audiences, especially Latino caregivers and their families
A collaborative, multidisciplinary team of neuroscience researchers, experts in early childhood education, museum educators, and OMSI personnel with expertise in informal science education and bilingual exhibit development will work together to ensure that current science is accurately interpreted and effectively presented to reach the target audiences. The project will foster better public understanding of early brain development and awareness and confidence in caregivers in using play to enrich their children’s experiences and support healthy brain development. Visitors will explore neuroscience and early childhood development through a variety of forms—multi-sensory, hands-on interactive exhibits, graphic panels, real objects, facilitated experiences, and an accompanying website.
Following the five-year development process, the exhibition will begin an eight-year national tour, during which it will reach more than one million people.