EDC Update Winter 2007 (pdf, 1.32 MB)
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What does it take to close the achievement gap in science? Researchers in EDC’s Center for Children & Families would tell you that real solutions involve starting early. They’ve developed Foundations of Science Literacy, a college-level science course for preschool teachers. Foundations introduces fundamental concepts in the physical sciences at the adult level along with strategies for making the material fun and accessible for preschoolers.
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Curious George, the mischievous little monkey of the classic children’s books created by Margret and H.A. Rey, has packed up for the bright lights and big city—he’s now starring in his own show on public television. The animated half-hour program, airing on PBS and featuring ideas from EDC researchers, encourages preschoolers to explore the world around them.
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Researchers at EDC are working with school leaders around the country to boost the involvement of Latino parents in their children’s education, recently focusing on an Arkansas county with one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the United States. Researchers will work with leaders from the Helen Tyson Middle School, part of the Springdale Public Schools, to apply lessons from the EDC project PALMS—Postsecondary Access for Latino Middle-Grades Students.
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A new word has entered the New Oxford American Dictionary: “pre-gaming.” Not a sports or recreation term, it’s the practice of downing alcohol before attending a school event or party where liquor is banned or in short supply.
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According to the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Examiner, suicide is the third leading cause of death within the armed forces, behind accidents and illness. To help clinicians better assess and manage suicide risk, the U.S. Air Force awarded the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) Training Institute at EDC a contract to train 1,300 clinicians at 45 Air Force installations around the world.
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A promising new treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) will be used nationally, thanks to an EDC team that collaborated with researchers from the U.S. Veterans Administration on a program to train mental health clinicians in its use.
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High school biology needn’t be all about memorization and lab reports. EDC is crafting a free bioethics curriculum that will have students discussing such thought-provoking topics as genetic enhancement, clinical trials, vaccination, and genetic screening.
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EDC is working on a new English translation of an obscure French textbook, Geometrie Elementaire, a simple yet highly influential text more than 100 years old, written by Jaques Hadamard, considered a giant of 20th century mathematics.
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Watch young people at home today, and you’re likely to see them managing technology with an ease that can inspire awe and envy. They text and they IM; they Google and they design their own Web pages; they download music and burn CDs—all in service of their friendships, romances, interests, and hobbies. But watch young people at school, and you’re more likely to find them seated at desks, listening to lectures, reading from textbooks, and penciling in little oval bubbles on standardized tests.
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How hard is it to afford your own home? Do you have to be rich? A new EDC project is helping students in Massachusetts understand the costs of owning a home and brainstorm ways that communities can make it possible for more low-income families. Students apply what they’ve learned by developing plans for their communities to offer more options for lower-income residents. The combined instruction-community service project was so successful in five high schools that additional schools have adopted it this year.
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“Creative and joyful” were the adjectives President Bush used to describe classroom lessons he observed in Indonesia while visiting with students and teachers taking part in EDC’s national education program there.
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EDC has gathered educators from across the country for a February symposium in Washington to share their strategies for actively engaging youth interest in science, math, and technology.
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Thousands of teachers across the nation teach a wide range of learners, and with No Child Left Behind and IDEA legislation, they are increasingly accountable for the performance of all their students, including those with disabilities.
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Building on young people’s natural creativity and interconnectedness, Adobe Systems Incorporated has launched a five-year, $10 million program to encourage young people to use multimedia tools, such as film, digital art, and animation, to comment on their world and take an active role in their communities.
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In Uganda, where interruptions to the power supply are frequent, Internet access is spotty. But a low-cost, low-energy computer lab set up for training rural teachers averts these problems, which tend to damage computer equipment and make it hard to reliably access the Web.
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Scott Pulizzi, of EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs (HHD), recently returned from Kenya and Uganda, his latest of more than 30 trips to Africa, where he is working to alleviate HIV. He talked with us about what he’s learned through his special connections to teachers there, and how their experience has changed his thinking and reinvigorated his work.