RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
Families play a vital role in supporting children’s informal science learning. Yet multiple studies have shown that Latinx families, particularly in neighborhoods with a high poverty rate, face many barriers to accessing informal science experiences and environments. Telenovelas, a type of television serial drama watched by Spanish-speaking audiences around the world, may provide an entryway to reaching these families. Prior research has shown that telenovelas can be an effective means of changing adults’ behavior, with potential cascading impacts on children. Education Development Center, Literacy Partners, and Univision will use a culturally responsive approach to broaden participation of Latinx families in informal science learning using La Fuerza de Creer, a popular Spanish-language telenovela that reaches 7 million U.S. viewers. The five-episode telenovela series will model positive informal science interactions between caregivers and their children and provide positive role models of Latinx scientists. The project team will then use the telenovela as the foundation for a five-session workshop series for caregivers to further explore how to engage in these informal science learning opportunities with their children. The La Fuerza-STEM project will build on families’ strengths and interests and tap their power—la fuerza—to engage children in exploring science. This research will examine the relationship between the telenovela/workshops and caregivers’ practices and attitudes towards science. La Fuerza-STEM seeks to expand informal science learning using a culturally grounded strategy to engage an under-served population that is historically under-represented in STEM.
The project will use an iterative research and design process that is guided by the input of both parent and scientific advisory boards. Front-end formative research with approximately 30 Latinx caregivers from under-resourced communities will explore their informal science practices. These experiences will then inform script development for the telenovela. A pre-post comparison group study with 200 caregivers will investigate how caregivers’ attitudes toward science might change as a result of viewing the telenovela. The project will then build a 5-session workshop series around the telenovela and these research findings. Finally, 300 caregivers will participate in a randomized controlled trial to examine the efficacy of the La Fuerza-STEM workshops on changing caregivers’ informal science attitudes and practices. Throughout, the project will address the overarching research question, How can a culturally relevant telenovela be used to improve Latinx caregivers’ science self-efficacy, career awareness, and informal science practices? Project findings and products will be publicly disseminated through publications, conference presentations, and local partner organizations, with an eye toward open access and data sharing. The project will generate knowledge about the effectiveness of embedding informal science content in a culturally-grounded medium—the telenovela—in improving caregivers’ confidence and competence to engage in informal science learning experiences with their children. With an anticipated audience of 7 million, the potential impact of the telenovela on caregivers’ informal science attitudes and practices is enormous. By implementing workshops with local organizations, the project aims to be self-sustaining, building the capacity of community partners to provide families with services targeting informal science knowledge and skills long after the grant has ended.
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joy KennedyJessica YoungAlexia RaynalAnthony Tassi
For at-risk children who cannot attend preschool, accessing science activities depends almost entirely on parents—but many parents have limited skills for supporting such learning. PBS station WGBH has recently launched a series of free family apps based on the Emmy Award-winning preschool science series, PEEP and the Big Wide World. The apps were developed to be used jointly by parent and child for a shared learning experience. Available on Google Play and the App Store in both Spanish and English, PEEP Family Science apps cover the topics of shadows, sound, color, and ramps, respectively.
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
How can creators of STEM learning media reach underserved parents and children, and support the kinds of playful STEM interactions that are foundational for future STEM learning?
This research report summarizes findings from a pilot study of Cyberchase: Mobile Adventures in STEM, a program that uses mobile text messaging and short videos to encourage hands-on family learning among low-income Latino families.
In the study, 95 mostly Latino families received weekly text messages with video clips from the popular children's series Cyberchase, and fun activities to do with their
Ruff Family Science is a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that aims to foster joint media engagement and hands-on science exploration among diverse, low-income parents and their 4- to 8-year-old children. Building on the success of the PBS series FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman, the project leverages FETCH’s funny and charismatic animated host, along with its proven approach to teaching science, to inspire educationally disadvantaged families to explore science together. The project is utilizing a research and design process to create resources that meet the needs of families
Latina SciGirls addresses specific barriers that prevent many young Latinas from participating fully in STEM, including:
Lack of STEM identity (girls’ ability to envision themselves as STEM professionals)
Limited exposure to STEM role models who look like them
Lack of knowledge and/or misunderstanding of STEM fields
The Child Trends News Service (CTNS) was created to report on new research about child development, and broaden the public’s access to information that can inform their parenting decisions. CTNS features this new research and research-based parenting practices in video news reports in both English and Spanish. While CTNS reporting is relevant to all parents, it also focuses on issues of specific interest to Latino parents regarding their children—the fastest-growing group of children in the United States.
CTNS is a collaboration between the Child Trends Hispanic Institute, a Child Trends
This third and final report reflects on the entire three-year grant period. It offers the External Review Team’s overall assessment and observations about the accomplishments and challenges experienced by the Child Trends Team while implementing the proof-of-concept study. It further presents several open questions and opportunities for future consideration.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. In this Innovations and Development project, Child Trends, in collaboration with Ivanhoe Broadcast News, will expand the reach of the Child Trends News Service, and rigorously evaluate its impact on viewers. The News Service aims to build the public's knowledge of, and appreciation for, social science research and to encourage adoption of research-informed parenting practices associated with positive child development--particularly among Latino parents. First produced in 2017 through a NSF proof of concept grant, the Child Trends News Service covers actionable, child-focused, social science research. By featuring this research on local TV news, the project expands access to evidence-based parenting recommendations. As of February 2018, 89 stations had subscribed to the News Service, including eight stations in the top 25 Latino-serving TV markets that reach 38% of all Hispanic TV Households in those 25 markets. This project is a response to the challenges faced by U.S. children, of whom more than one in five live in poverty. The focus on Latino parents is in response Latinos' increasing share of all children, and that Latino children are disproportionately poor, in comparison to their peers. The project will examine the impact of the News Service on parents who view the news reports in their homes, as well as Latino parents viewing the News Service as part of their participation in the Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors) community-based parenting program. This research will contribute to the knowledge base of what we know about how people access and use science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) information across settings.
The overarching aim of this project is to leverage commercial television news to reach populations who have historically been underrepresented in STEM education and careers. The goals of the project are to:
1. Build and manage an interdisciplinary collaborative, including news media professionals, researchers, practitioners in organizations serving at-risk families, and experts in STEM communications and Latino studies.
2. Leverage mass media news outlets to deliver social science research on children to at-risk populations, with a focus on reaching Latino parents.
3. Advance the field of informal STEM learning by exploring how the public interacts with actionable research on child development to inform their knowledge, attitudes and behaviors.
4. Expand the reach and application of the news products through strategic outreach to other stakeholders in the child development field including programs serving under-served families.
To accomplish these goals, the project will further strengthen an Advisory Panel to inform content development, study design, interpretation of findings, dissemination of study results, and the transition of the project after the NSF grant period. The project will continue to provide eight (both in English and Spanish) stories each month to TV stations and strategically grow the reach in top Latino markets. The editorial process will be informed by surveys of Latino parents to identify topics of interest. Through a random-assignment impact study with local TV news audiences from diverse racial/ethnic groups, the project will evaluate the impact of the News Service. The project will use formative research methods to refine messaging and examine the potential for repurposing the videos through a parenting program for Latino parents.
The Child Trends News Service seeks broader impacts in three areas: increasing the public's scientific literacy and engagement with science and technology; increasing partnerships between academia, industry, and others; and improving the well-being of individuals in society.
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.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. This project will develop and test intergenerational science media resources for parents that are participating in adult education programs and their young children. The materials will build on the research-based and successful children's television program, Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. The target audience includes parents enrolled in adult education programs who lack a high school diploma or are in English as a Second Language classes. These resources will support parents' engagement in science activities with their children both in the adult education settings as well as at home. Adult and family educators will receive professional development resources and training to support their integration of the parent/child activities. Project partners include the National Center for Families Learning, Kentucky Educational Television, and Alabama Public Television,
The goals of the Ruff Family Science project are to: (1) investigate adult education settings that feature an intergenerational learning model, in order to learn about the unique characteristics of adults and families who are enrolled in these programs; (2) examine the institutional circumstances and educator practices that support joint parent/child engagement in science; (3) iteratively develop new prototype resources meet the priorities and needs of families and educators involved in intergenerational education settings; and (4) develop the knowledge needed to create a fuller set of materials in the future that will motivate and support diverse, low-income parents to investigate science with their children. The research strategy is comprised of three main components: Phase 1: Needs Assessment: Determine key motivations and behaviors common to adult education students who are also parents; surface obstacles and assets inherent in these parents' current practices; and examine the needs and available resources for supplementing parents' current engagement in family science learning. Phase 2: Prototype Development: Iteratively develop two prototype Activity Sets, along with related educator supports and training materials, designed to promote joint parent-child engagement with English and Spanish-speaking families around physical science concepts. Phase 3: Prototype Field Test: Test how the two refined prototype Activity Sets work in different educational settings (adult education, parent education, and parent and child together time). Explore factors that support or impede effective implementation. Sources of data for the study include observations of adult and parent education classes using an expert interview protocol, focus groups, adult and family educator interviews, and parent surveys.