The Lab is brining animal behavior and development experiments to K-12 aged kids though our recently funded Engaged Cornell grant. Our project uses novel and innovative teaching toolkits to engage K-12 students from underserved communities with hands-on animal behavior experiments using invertebrates. The opportunity will jump start discussions on the relevancy of the experiments to their own lives.
The aim of the proposed project is to foster an awareness of the value of research on the impacts of early-life social experience on development through undergraduate engagement with grade-school aged children. We accomplish this by: 1) collaborating with community partners that provide Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) educational opportunities to traditionally underserved K-12 students, and 2) enabling undergraduate students at Cornell University to effectively convey the relevance and importance of research on animal behavior to the larger public.