Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Remy DouHeidi CianZahra HazariPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
There is growing interest in stories as potentially powerful tools for science learning. In this mini-review article, we discuss theory and evidence indicating that, especially for young children, listening to and sharing stories with adult caregivers at home can make scientific ideas and inquiry practices meaningful and accessible. We review recent research offering evidence that stories presented in books can advance children’s science learning.
In collaboration with Metropolitan Family Service (MFS), we conducted a three-year design-based research study to better understand how the characteristics of hands-on, home-based family engineering activities influence how preschool-age children and their parents engage in the engineering design process. Four themes emerged from the study: (1) Families used their imagination and activity narrative elements to set the design context, (2) Families evaluated and revised their solutions based on imagination-driven constraints, (3) Families creatively modified the design space, and (4) Imaginative
Playscapes are intentionally designed, dynamic, vegetation-rich, play environments that nurture young children's affinity for nature. We investigated how the affordances of a nature playscape provide opportunities to strengthen children's executive function by identifying examples of goal-directed and focused problem-solving within children's free play in this setting. Through video-based fieldwork, drawing on the extant literature, and application of indicators within existing assessments for executive function in nature preschools, we found that playscapes can be executive function-enhancing
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Victoria CarrRhonda BrownSue SchlembachLeslie Kochanowski
Play serves an important function in early childhood, and more specifically, play in nature provides an optimal venue for holistic development. Teachers play a critical role in providing and protecting these experiences for young children. This study aimed to understand and make more explicit the perceived benefits of a nature playscape from the perspective of teachers. Participants in this phenomenological study were preschool teachers at an urban Midwestern university early childhood laboratory school (n=13). Surveys and interviews were used to answer the central research question: What
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sue SchlembachLeslie KochanowskiRhonda BrownVictoria Carr
PEEP Family Science is designed for parents and their three- to five-year-old children, especially those from low-income families who are served by home visiting organizations. A media-based project featuring the preschool public television science program PEEP and the Big Wide World, it includes animated stories, live-action videos with real children, hands-on science activities, and educational resources designed to support parents and home visiting educators. PEEP Family Science comes in the form of four apps, one for each science unit: ramps, colors, sounds, and shadows. Once downloaded
The PEEP Family Science apps were designed specifically for low-income parents and their preschool children to explore science together at home. A major issue we confronted early on in the design and development was how families would be able to access the PEEP media, which included videos from the award-winning children's show, PEEP and the Big Wide World. Many of the families we tested the apps with did not have reliable internet connections. We initially made the decision to choose an app format instead of a website to help bridge the digital divide. But the app format has also enabled us
To engage parents and young children in exploring science together, media producers from WGBH (Boston’s public media station) and researchers from Education Development Center (EDC) collaborated with two home-visiting organizations—Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY USA) and AVANCE—to design and test PEEP Family Science, an app-based intervention with science-focused digital media resources and associated supports for diverse, low-income families. Both organizations target families whose children do not attend preschool. These home visiting organizations play a unique
Nature-based playgrounds—known as playscapes—offer numerous opportunities for young children to learn about nature. In the current study, we focus on teacher talk on playscapes, namely to capture the spontaneous utterances teachers offer when engaging with young children during playscape visits. Two different playscapes were contrasted, both of which featured loose parts, native plants, and running water. The difference in playscape was whether it featured ecosystems: While the rural playscape had a natural forest and a wetland, the urban playscape had a man-made stream and a garden. Ten
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Heidi KloosCatherine MaltbieRhonda BrownVictoria Carr
Developmental perspectives on prejudice provide a fundamental and important key to the puzzle for determining how to address prejudice. Research with historically disadvantaged and advantaged groups in childhood and adolescence reveals the complexity of social cognitive and moral judgments about prejudice, discrimination, bias, and exclusion. Children are aware of status and hierarchies, and often reject the status quo. Intervention, to be effective, must happen early in development, before prejudice and stereotypes are deeply entrenched.
Fostering interest in science is critical for broadening engagement with science topics, careers, and hobbies. Research suggests that these interests begin to form as early as preschool and have long-term implications for participation and learning. However, scholars have only speculated on the processes that shape interest development at this age, when children’s exposure to science primarily occurs during family-based learning experiences. Moving beyond speculation, we conducted a qualitative study with seven low-income mothers and their four-year-old daughters from Head Start to (a) develop
This position paper, co-authored Center for Childhood Creativity's Director Elizabeth Rood and Director of Research Helen Hadani, details the importance of exposing children ages 0-8 to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) experiences. The review of more than 150 empirical studies led Rood and Hadani to conclude that, despite what has been previously thought, modern research supports the understanding that children are capable of abstract thinking and STEM-learning from infancy, beginning before their first birthday.
The Roots of STEM Success, authored in support of classroom
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Helen Shwe HadaniElizabeth RoodAmy EisenmannRuthe FousheeGarrett JaegerGina JaegerJoanna KauffmannKatie KennedyLisa Regalla