The Discovery Center, operated by the United States Space Foundation, will partner with the Pikes Peak Library District to implement Small Steps, Giant Leap: STEM Adventures for Little Space Explorers, a free early literacy program designed for children ages 3-6 that seeks to engage the target audience of low-income and military families, populations currently underserved by the Discovery Center. The program is an interactive storytelling experience with an associated hands-on craft that occurs twice monthly, once in person and once virtually, and is designed to enable early learners to grow in literacy via the lenses of science and space exploration while developing vital social skills and self-esteem.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program supports new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This project will meet this goal through rigorous research and the broad implementation of an environmental science literacy professional development and learning program for informal educators and youth engaged in outdoor science programs (OSP). With growing support from the literature and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), much attention has been placed on creating and leveraging interdisciplinary science learning opportunities beyond science classrooms. As such, an estimated 300 residential OSPs currently exist in the United States. Unfortunately, the informal educators often charged with facilitating these deep and impactful science learning experiences often lack robust formal training in evidenced-based, age-appropriate environmental science content knowledge and pedagogy specific for the youth in their programs. This issue is often more pronounced in under-resourced and under-served programs and communities. This project will directly address these pervasive challenges in the field by not only providing much needed science focused professional development and resources to informal educators but also by specifically targeting and training informal leaders and educators serving youth in predominately rural areas, low-income communities, and underrepresented communities.
Approximately 200 OSP leaders at 100 OSPs around the country will participate in a week-long, intensive training in the professional development model at one of five regional residential leadership institutes. OSP leaders will then redeliver the training to the approximately 1,500 OSP educators/field instructors in their home institutions. The OSP educators/field instructors will then use what they learn through the professional development to facilitate the environmental science learning program (i.e., curriculum, field experiences, resources, pedagogy) to over 1 million youth (grades 3-8) enrolled in their residential outdoor science programs. In addition, a rigorous implementation study, efficacy study and evaluation will be conducted. The implementation study will investigate: (a) Which of the professional learning model practices were implemented and (b) What successes and challenges the programs faced implementing the model. The mixed methods efficacy study will explore: (a) if outdoor science programs contribute to the development of science learning activation and environmental literacy? and (b) what are the features of these experiences that are correlated with increases in science learning activation and environmental literacy. Approximately 25-35 youth will be randomly selected from each of 50 randomly selected sites to participate in the efficacy study. The data and findings from the research and evaluation produced by this project will contribute to a relatively sparse knowledge and research base specific to youth efficacy and implementation processes and practices across nearly 1/3 of the estimated 300 existing residential outdoor science programs in the United States.
The Katonah Museum of Art (KMA) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to evaluate its early childhood program, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether (ArteJuntos), ArteJuntos is a bilingual art and culture-based family literacy program that introduces low-income, educationally at-risk preschool children and their families to the KMA. Using works of art in KMA’s exhibitions, the program connects parents and their children (ages 3-5) to activities that support children’s emergent literacies—observation, oral and receptive language, and critical thinking skills.
How did we approach this study?
RK
Pairing age-appropriate novels with thematic units on the civil rights movement and the presidential election allows one afterschool practitioner to bring democracy to life for inner-city middle school students.
While much of the current concern over the literacy development of low- and moderate income children focuses on schools (and, to a lesser degree, on parents), many observers are arguing for a role for other institutions. In particular, funders are turning to afterschool programs to address this critical developmental task. This paper explores the roles afterschool programs can and do play in the literacy development of low-income children, drawing on surveys and observations of afterschool programs in Chicago, New York, and Seattle.
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.
Nebraskans for Public Television are producing three programs in the "Reading Rainbow" series that focus on mathematics and developing and implementing a special math outreach effort aimed at parents with a secondary audience of teachers. The programs will take a literature-based approach to mathematics which helps make it possible ". . . for children to have the same authentic experiences with math that they are coming to have with language, social studies, science and the arts." (Read Any good Math Lately? by Whitin and Wilde). The goal of the project is to expand the impact of the "Reading Rainbow" series by: - integrating quality math-oriented books with science and literary selections into the series, and - making quality children's math-oriented books more visible to parents, public librarians, and teachers and to engage children's interest in reading about and exploring math in the real world. The outreach effort will develop a special math effort directed to parents, children, and teachers. A special publication for parents and a teacher guide will be created for the new math-focused programs. The producers will work with the Family Math Project at the Lawrence Hall of Science in training parents and children and will also direct community outreach efforts towards economically and socially disadvantaged families. This effort will engage these families in math related activities through partnerships with community-based organizations and local public television stations involved in PBS's Ready to Learn Project. Partnership organizations include the National Council for Teachers of Math, Girls Inc, The Connecticut Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, EQUALS Family Math Project, and the Weekly Reader Corporation. "Reading Rainbow" partnerships also have been established between three SSI's -- Louisiana, Michigan, and Ohio -- and PBS stations in those states.