Outreach: Inspiring future scientists; Empowering caregivers
Inspiring future scientists
To help young learners picture themselves as scientists, the researchers behind siSTEMas (Stimulating Immersive Science Through Engaging, Motivating, and Authentic Scenarios) created a five-day summer camp for underserved students, particularly Latinx learners.
These middle-grade students received hands-on experience conducting science research at the College’s inaugural siSTEMas Camp—a $1.3 million joint research and outreach project led by principal investigator and associate research scientist Georgia Hodges in the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education.
“It’s very important for students to know that you don’t have to look a certain way and that you don’t have to be a specific gender to do STEM,” said Hodges. “The exciting thing is we saw transitions from kids saying, ‘No, I’m not a scientist’ to ‘I really can be a scientist.’ We’re going to follow these kids into the classroom and see if they see themselves as leaders and if the camp impacts them long term.”
Read the full story on our website.
Empowering caregivers
Students interested in investigating and understanding child language disorders are putting their passion into practice.
Housed in the UGA Mary Frances Early College of Education, the Child Communication Lab (CCL) is a collaborative research hub led by Jennifer Brown, associate professor and graduate coordinator in the Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education.
The lab offers students at various stages of their college careers the opportunity to not only conduct and analyze research, but to apply what they’ve learned through their research studies into real-world practice.
“When people think about research to practice, they’ll say that there’s a gap,” said Brown. “We need what people are doing in early intervention to be informing our research, and our research needs to be examining things that are doable for early intervention providers.”