News & Media
Lively Learning: ‘Their Eyes Just Bloomed Open’
August 20, 2024 | D’Lyn Ford
Watching preschoolers pull up a radish, count the seeds in an apple, crunch a bite of carrot or explore a fragrant basil leaf with a magnifying glass, it’s easy to sense their excitement. Head Start teacher Sarah Richardson loves these lively ways of teaching science using healthy foods. “Their eyes just bloomed open,” says Richardson, one of the teachers taking part in the PEAS program. ..… Read more!
Latest Event Adds to Science Education Success
October 17, 2023 | Ronnie Woodward
The continuation of funding and programs to emphasize science exploration in preschool education has stretched beyond eastern North Carolina and into other parts of the state as planned, including a recent professional development session in Raleigh. Implementation has focused on introducing STEM education in 4-year-old classrooms within Head Start and NC Pre-K settings..… Read more!
Healthy Start: Alumna Virginia Stage Adds Science, Nutrition in Preschool
October 26, 2021 | D’Lyn Ford
Signs of Virginia Stage’s professional calling—helping young children discover science and enjoy nutritious foods—showed up on her plate long before she became a nutrition professor and researcher. As a child, Stage filled her plate with vegetables at restaurant buffets, to her family’s surprise. She credits a grandmother, who taught nutrition as a nurse, with adding a piece of spinach or other colorful vegetable to her plate. Her other grandmother, who had only earned a high school diploma, did on-the-ground research to learn more about the history of her community, writing books about local history in her 60s and 70s.… Read more!
Starting STEM Early
November 2, 2021 | Natalie Sayewich
If you happened to see Dr. Virginia C. Stage on the ground, digging through the dirt to find roly-polies outside ECU’s Health Sciences Building this past summer, you might not immediately guess that would somehow propel some of the state’s youngest learners toward a healthier lifestyle… Read more!
More PEAS, Please!
November 18, 2019 | Dee Shore
Parents know, and research has proven, that preschoolers have hungry minds. They ask hundreds of questions every day as they observe and shape the world around them. Could early food and nutrition education, delivered by trained pre-K teachers, feed their curiosity about science, technology, engineering, and math? Researchers at four North Carolina universities are working together to find out. With a $1.32 million Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the researchers… Read more!
Grant will Give Preschoolers Head Start on Learning about Science and Health
September 18, 2019 | Kristin Zachary
East Carolina University will lead a new five-year, $1.3 million grant that will give thousands of North Carolina children an early start on learning about science and nutrition. Preschool Education in Applied Sciences (PEAS) is a project made possible by a Science Education Partnership Award funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The PEAS program will work with Head Start teachers of preschoolers from 3 to 5 years old in seven eastern North Carolina counties to build their confidence and skill sets for teaching science in the context of healthy living. Read more!
