Brain Healthy: Engaging Students in Citizen Science Brain Health and Wellness Investigations to Promote Data Science Literacy

大脑健康：让学生参与公民科学大脑健康和健康调查，以提高数据科学素养

• 批准号: 10676315
• 负责人: Ido Davidesco
• 金额: $ 26.77万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT STORRS
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-05 至 2027-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10676315
• 关键词: Affective; Area; Attitude; Award; Awareness; Biology; Brain; COVID-19 pandemic; Cognitive; Communication; Communities; Connecticut; Data; Data Analyses; Data Analytics; Data Collection; Data Science; Data Set; Databases; Educational Curriculum; Educational Materials; Ensure; Ethnic Population; Evaluation; Exercise; Feedback; Funding; Goals; Grant; Health; Heart Rate; Interview; Intuition; Investigation; Leadership; Learning; Life Experience; Life Style; Measures; Mental Health; Mentors; Moods; Neurosciences; New York; New York City; Next Generation Science Standards; Personal Satisfaction; Physical Exercise; Principal Investigator; Process; Research; Research Project Grants; STEM career; School Teachers; Schools; Science; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education; Self Efficacy; Stress; Structure; Students; Surveys; Time; Underrepresented Populations; Underrepresented Students; United States National Institutes of Health; Universities; Wellness Program; Work; Youth; biomedical data science; brain health; career; citizen science; cohort; community science; computerized; coronavirus disease; course development; data communication; data visualization; design; education research; experience; fitness; healthy lifestyle; high school; improved; interest; literacy; minority communities; multidisciplinary; ninth grade; open source; pedagogy; peer coaching; programs; racial population; recruit; research study; scaffold; science education; skills; sleep quality; social media; stress management; student mentoring; student participation; success; teacher; tenth grade; underserved community; web interface; web platform

PROJECT SUMMARY Brain Healthy builds upon the success of BrainWaves, a prior NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA)-supported program, which has been successfully implemented in 25 public New York City schools, reaching over 600 students. Our new proposed program, Brain Healthy, is responsive to one of the new areas of high SEPA programmatic interest: providing students with access to research-generated data to prepare students for data science careers. Brain Healthy will be designed by a multidisciplinary team across the University of Connecticut and New York University in partnership with public school teachers in Connecticut and New York City that primarily serve students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). It will be implemented as a month-long unit within a 9th/10th grade core biology course. Students in the program will first participate in a large-scale “citizen science” research project by taking a comprehensive survey (partially developed by students themselves) about their health and lifestyle practices. Students will also measure their heart rate with fitness trackers and complete a computerized cognitive (Stroop) task and mood survey. They will learn about brain plasticity and how positive (e.g., physical exercise) and negative (e.g., stress) life experiences impact our brain. With support from near-peer mentors (NPMs), students will then design data-driven investigations utilizing the entire de-identified citizen science database collected across all the participating schools, exploring questions, such as how sleep quality relates to mood and how fitness level associates with ability to focus. The Brain Healthy platform will guide students through these investigations by providing scaffolding in critical steps of the process. The program will culminate in a school-wide science fair, where students will share their findings with the wider school community. The program will be accompanied by professional development (PD) courses for teachers and NPMs prior to school implementation with additional just-in-time support. The main educational research questions are how does participation in a “citizen science” brain health and wellness program impact: 1) Students’ conceptual understanding of data analysis and brain plasticity, and their attitudes toward STEM; 2) Teachers’ self-efficacy in facilitating data-driven student investigations; 3) NPMs’ mentoring ability and intent to persist in STEM. Three cohorts of 10 teachers will be recruited, each participating for three years, with the first year occurring prior to the Brain Healthy PD course (serving as a well-matched comparison). Across the 5- year project, ~1500 students are expected to participate in Brain Healthy. Project evaluation will utilize pre- and post-program surveys, semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations.

项目总结