The Institute for Learning Innovation, Inc., requests $264,904 to pilot a project for establishing a national program to provide parents and significant other adults with support, training and materials. Also, the project goals will enable parents and other adults to become actively engaged in local science education reform and science literacy for their children. The duration of this project is eighteen months. The cost sharing for this NSF award is 24.6% of the total projected cost of the project. The Institute for Learning Innovation, Inc. will collaborate with the YWCA of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, Boys and Girls Club of Annapolis and the Arundel County Public Schools' Family Involvement Center. Project "ASK with Science" will develop a model program for implementing and disseminating science education materials to young children in underserved communities, thereby creating a grassroots, family-oriented program that can become established in the local communities served by these organizations.
This project plans to develop a partnership with KCTS Public Television, Laubach Literacy Action, and the National Alliance of Urban Literacy Coalitions to develop an implementation plan to promote higher science literacy in at-risk families in inner city settings. These organizations reach families that seldom participate in formal and informal science learning programs. A training design for literacy providers to use science literacy materials as an integrated part of their adult literacy curriculum will be developed. Video and print materials that are specifically designed for low literacy adults will be developed. These are expected to be simple, fun, and effective ways to foster the love of science and learning in themselves and their children. Front-end evaluation focus groups will be conducted with providers and parents to gain insights into the specific needs and general expectations of the parents and literacy providers, and to get feedback on the proposed project materials.
The Widmeyer-Baker Group (TWBG) working in conjunction with The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Incorporated (NACME) proposes to design and implement a campaign of Public Understanding and Engagement of Mathematics targeted toward national, state, and local audiences. The primary goal of the campaign is to engage the publics' thinking about what students in the United States should know and be able to do in mathematics in the middle school grades and the reasons mathematics is important to successful careers and to live an interesting and productive life. The approach will expose a diverse cross-section of Americans to mathematics using math puzzles designed by NCTM. TWBG will make widespread use of these camera-ready math puzzles in a variety of ways and formats. The primary audience for this campaign is the general adult population. The secondary audience is the middle school students and their parents, including persons serving as parent surrogates (i.e., extended family, foster parents, daycare providers, etc.). This initiative will be a grassroots effort capable of reaching every community throughout the United States. TWBG will be expected to make creative use and/ or collaboration with mass media, policy/administrative/teaching and grassroots organizations, corporations, and federal and state agencies in dissemination of the message about the campaign.