Get in the GROOVE!

描述(由申请者提供)：进入最佳状态将解决影响未得到充分服务的年轻人的健康差距，以及在培养下一代卫生专业人员方面培养多样性的国家需要。鉴于少数民族高中生超重和肥胖的比例令人担忧，该项目将以中学为重点，主要目标是在不健康的习惯变得根深蒂固之前接触到中学女生。 该项目将研究和非正式科学教育界聚集在一起，以创新的努力促进关于非正式学习环境的影响的知识库，非正式学习环境是向不同人群传达关键健康信息的传递系统，并探索利用虚拟世界技术作为一种媒介，激发人们对了解健康饮食和体育活动如何影响个人一生福祉的兴趣。 具体目标是：1)为中学生开发科学丰富的健康教育资源，激发他们对健康生活方式的兴趣；2)提高中学生对与营养和生理相关的STEM职业道路的认识和兴趣；3)在家庭文化背景下，提高父母对良好营养和体育活动对儿童健康的重要性的认识；4)通过随机对照试验，调查在非正式博物馆环境中探索的三维虚拟世界对中学生的自我效能、健康知识和积极行为改变的准备程度；以及5)向全球卫生界、非正规科学教育界和K-12研究界广泛传播评估的方案结果和研究成果。 评估计划将记录Groove计划的影响，该计划旨在让学生参与营养和体育活动的研究，并增强他们对营养和活动对其整体健康重要性的概念性理解。如果成功，这种方法将通过对虚拟世界模拟作为一种学习工具的使用进行严格评估来推动这一领域的发展，有助于研究非正规教育环境对代表不足的青年的影响和价值，并可能通过同时激发对科学的兴趣和促进青年的健康行为来改变科学教育。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Get in the GROOVE will address health disparities impacting underserved youth, as well as the national need to cultivate diversity in preparing the next generation of health professionals. Given the alarming rate of overweight and obesity among high school minority youth, the project will focus on middle school with the primary aim of reaching middle school girls before unhealthy habits become firmly ingrained. The project brings together the research and informal science education community in an innovative effort to contribute to the knowledge base with regard to the impact of informal learning environments as a delivery system for communicating key health messages to diverse populations, and explore the use of virtual world technology as a vehicle for motivating interest in learning how a healthy diet and physical activity can impact an individual's wellbeing throughout life. The specific objectives are to: 1) to develop science-rich health education resources for middle school students that motivate interest in adopting a healthy lifestyle; 2) to increase middle school students' awareness of and interest in nutrition and physiology related STEM career pathways; 3) increase parental awareness, within the family cultural context, of the importance of good nutrition and physical activity for children's health; 4) to investigate, in a randomized controlled trial, the extent to which a 3-D virtual world environment explored in an informal museum setting produces gains in middle school students' self-efficacy, health knowledge, and readiness for positive behavior change; and 5) to broadly disseminate the evaluated program results and research findings to the global community of health, informal science education and K-12 research communities. The evaluation plan will document the impact of the GROOVE program to engage students in the study of nutrition and physical activity and enhance their conceptual understanding of the importance of nutrition and activity to their overall health. If successful, this approach will advance the field through rigorous evaluation of the use of virtual world simulations as a learning tool, contribute to the research base of the impact and the value of informal education environments to serve underrepresented youth, and could transform science education by simultaneously stimulating interest in science while promoting healthy behavior in youth.