At the heart of this paper is a well-founded belief in the importance of play in the lives of children; play that leads to social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Teacher educators have the responsibility and opportunity to educate and enlighten in-service and pre-service teachers on the role of play in schools. At our university…

This paper results from programming of Indigenous Logix: Mathematics|Culture|Environment (IndigiLogix). IndigiLogix's intention is to increase Indigenous students' love for mathematics as well as college access and success. Through IndigiLogix, it was transparent that the mathematics knowledge imparted to our Indigenous students derived from a…

Many schools and out-of-school organizations use social-emotional learning (SEL) programs to boost students' skills. Yet research shows that these programs can be difficult to implement and don't always meet students' needs. In response, Rebecca Bailey, Laura Stickle, Gretchen Brion-Meisels, and Stephanie Jones propose a new approach to SEL…

Healthy 2B Me aims to educate and empower underserved children ages seven to 11 years old to improve their health and well-being through a supportive, educational and entertaining public health-themed summer day camp. Qualitative data collected through camper exit slips, final posters/presentations, and parent surveys were analyzed to identify…

Faculty training and development for First-Year Seminar (FYS) faculty at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) is conducted in the form of training workshops, bi-annual teaching institutes, and various professional development opportunities. Facilitated workshop content is based on student-centered teaching and learning theories.…

The Juntos Program empowers Latina/o students and their families to gain the knowledge and resources necessary for academic success in high school and college. This is made possible via four interlinking components: Family Engagement; 4-H Clubs; Success Coaching and Mentoring; and a Juntos Summer Academy. Nineteen focus groups with participants in…

This study examined how children's perceptions of economic inequalities impacted their moral judgments about access to opportunities. The sample included ethnically diverse 8- to 14-year-olds (N = 267; M = 11.61 years, SD = 1.88) of middle- to upper-middle-income backgrounds. The larger the economic inequality in access to opportunities children…

In examining twenty-two summer bridge program websites across the country, this study focused on a particular type of student support at one of the most historically-contentious positions in a college student's trajectory--the point of access. Diverse student populations bring specific strengths, resources, skills, and knowledge, or "funds of…

Translational science is the cornerstone of biomedicine that transfers laboratory and clinical research to the hospital bedside in various forms of therapeutic interventions. This scientific branch influences public health decisions, the economy, and ongoing research endeavors. The purpose of this study was to develop a youth-friendly…

This study investigated the effects of an intensive summer program on students' writing, reading, listening, vocabulary, and grammar skills. The program consisted of 4 weeks at the U.S. home institution and 4 weeks in Berlin, Germany, and offered the equivalent of two college-level, second-year German classes in one summer. During the last three…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate adolescent satisfaction with the curriculum HealthSpeaks. HealthSpeaks was designed to use poetry to increase awareness about healthy behaviors and health conditions. Research has shown that using poetry in education and related fields promotes social connections, information retention, and awareness among…

In this article we describe the development, implementation, and some of the early impacts of Nurture thru Nature (NtN), an American after-school and summer program designed to introduce elementary school students in disadvantaged, urban public schools to natural science and environmental education. The program, which began operations in 2010 as a…

The study of social cognition involves the attribution of states of mind to humans, as well as, quite recently, to nonhuman creatures, like God. Some studies support the role of social cognition in religious beliefs, whereas others ascribe religious beliefs to an ontological knowledge bias. The present study compares these distinct approaches in…

Northern Arizona University (NAU) has been operating a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates program for 18 years. The program works with tribal and community college faculty to recruit students traditionally underrepresented in the sciences for a 10-week summer research experience at NAU. Since 2006, 77…

This paper presents results from the evaluation of the Nurture thru Nature (NtN) programme, a natural science and environmental education intervention designed to help elementary school children from disadvantaged backgrounds increase their knowledge of science and strengthen overall academic performance. Using an experimental design the pilot NtN…