Integrating health and biology in a science curriculum for Latino preschoolers

描述（由申请人提供）：与讲英语的同龄人相比，来自低收入语言少数民族背景的儿童开始上幼儿园时处于明显的劣势，突出了为他们提供丰富的幼儿教育经验的必要性。许多州的准备标准现在强调学前科学是幼儿过渡到正规学校教育的关键领域（开端，2007年）。然而，由于缺乏严格的研究设计来评估学前科学课程的有效性，研究人员无法得出有关最佳实践的结论。此外，学前科学课程是为来自中等收入背景的欧洲裔美国儿童组成的教室设计的，这些课程的有效性尚未在来自西班牙语背景的低收入拉丁裔学前儿童中进行过测试。拟议的研究的总体目标是设计和测试学前科学课程的有效性，为低收入的拉丁裔儿童，重点是提高他们的概念理解细菌传染和污染，食品和营养，感兴趣的领域NIH有关发展创造性和创新的研究教育，提供有关健康生活的信息科学的儿童。我们的研究是新颖的，因为它整合了健康和生物学的概念，在多单元的科学课程，而不是引入健康信息作为一个独立的主题以外的科学，典型的学前教育计划。在拟议的研究中，40个学龄前教室将被随机分配到两个实验组之一：1）接受基于生物学的健康科学课程的治疗组; 2）从出版的在线材料中接受标准健康课程的注意力控制组。在每个实验组中，一半的教室将接受西班牙语课程，另一半将接受英语课程。所有4岁和5岁的儿童都将参加测试前和测试后的评估课程。我们预计，相对于对照组，儿童将表现出增加的概念性理解的健康概念相关的生物过程，科学探究技能，他们提出问题和产生解释的能力来衡量。这两组儿童的科学理解和探究技能将有显着增加虽然实验课程的总体效果对于接受其主要语言（西班牙语）教学的儿童来说会更强，但这项研究将为生物学课程的开发和传播提供重要信息，基于学前健康科学计划，特别是来自西班牙语背景的低收入拉丁裔儿童，但适合不同类型的学习者。 公共卫生相关性（由申请人提供）：本研究旨在设计和测试学前科学课程，整合健康和生物概念的有效性。目标人群是来自低收入、讲西班牙语背景的拉丁美洲儿童。然而，用于开发这一课程的一般原则将为有效的教育提供重要信息。 为低收入少数民族儿童以及其他类型的学习者，如单语英语儿童提供学前科学课程。这项研究响应了NIH的目标，即开发创造性和创新性的研究，为学龄前儿童提供有关健康生活的重要信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Children from low-income language minority backgrounds begin kindergarten at a significant disadvantage compared to their English-speaking peers, highlighting the need to provide them with enriching educational experiences in early childhood. Many state readiness standards now highlight preschool science as a key domain in the preparation of young children for the transition into formal schooling (Head Start, 2007). Yet, the lack of studies with rigorous research designs to evaluate the effectiveness of preschool science curricula has prevented researchers from drawing conclusions about best practices. In addition, preschool science curricula have been designed for classrooms made up of European American children from middle income backgrounds and the effectiveness of these programs have not been tested with low-income Latino preschool children from Spanish- speaking backgrounds. The overall goal of the proposed study is to design and test the efficacy of a preschool science curriculum for low-income Latino children that focuses on improving their conceptual understanding of germ contagion and contamination, and food and nutrition, an area of interest to NIH related to developing creative and innovate research education to deliver information about healthy living in science to children. Our study is novel in that it integrates health and biology concepts in a multi-unit science curriculum, instead of introducing health information as a stand-alone topic outside of science, typical of preschool programs. In the proposed research, 40 preschool classrooms will be assigned randomly to one of two experimental groups: 1) a treatment group that receives the biology-based health science curriculum; 2) an attention control group that receives a standard health curriculum from published, on-line materials. Within each experimental group, half of the classrooms will receive the curriculum in Spanish and the other half will receive the curriculum in English. All children, ages 4 and 5, will participate in pre- and postest assessment sessions. We expect that relative to control group, children will show an increase in conceptual understanding of health concepts related to biological process, and science inquiry skills as measured by their capacity to ask questions and generate explanations. There will be significant increases on measures of science understanding and inquiry skills for both groups of children (those receiving the instruction in Spanish and those in English) although the overall effects of the experimental curriculum will be stronger for children receiving the instruction in their primary language (Spanish).This study will provide vital information for the development and dissemination of a biology-based preschool health science program particularly for low-income Latino children from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, but appropriate for different types of learners. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): This study aims to design and test the efficacy of a preschool science curriculum that integrates health and biology concepts. The target population is Latino children from low-income, Spanish- speaking backgrounds. However, the general principles used to develop this curriculum will provide vital information for effective preschool science programs for low-income minority children as well as other types of learners such as monolingual English-speaking children. This study is responsive to NIH's goal of developing creative and innovate research that delivers vital information about healthy living to preschool children.