Science Education Partnership Award

Scientists at the Shriver Center are partnering with local elementary school educators and administrators to develop a curriculum of biobehavioral science education for use with children in grades 3-6. Our goal is to provide children with learning experiences that will establish the foundation for broad, socially connected understanding of how the brain works and how brain functioning relates to behavior. To do so, we are taking advantage of the environment and resources of the Shriver Center, a center of interdisciplinary scientific research training, and clinical service activities.

Our grant, directed by Dr. William McIlvane, is unique in that there is an explicit, hands-on focus on showing how various scientific disciplines (neurobiology, behavioral neuroscience, genetics, etc.) work together to understand biobehavioral phenomena. The project is also unique in that the curriculum explicitly contrasts typical and atypical development. By doing this, we will teach children that variations in development are normal and determined by understandable or potentially understandable interactions between genes, brain development and environment. In developing our curriculum, we are using a multi-track, multi-modal approach that recognizes that children are a heterogeneous group with different histories, strengths, and interests. It consists of schoolroom demonstrations, small group cooperative learning exercises, and computer-assisted self-study programs with appropriate branching options to accommodate individual differences in performance. To publicize our activities and to set the stage for dissemination, we plan to maintain an up-to-date website. The website will communicate the major features of the curriculum and solicit broader input to and participation in the development effort.

SEPA funding provided by NIH-NCRR, Grant # 1R25RR13433, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, and private donors.