About Me
Hello! My name is Eunice Yi, and I am the summer intern for the CCE Growing and Learning Together: Learning Through Play. I am a rising junior majoring in Human Development with prospective minors ina Global and Public Health Sciences, Law and Society, and Gerontology. This summer I will be working with Professor Marianella Casasola and Monica Gopaul, CUCE-NYC parent educator in charge of the Family and Youth Development in the Parenting Education Program, across Brooklyn and Queens. I will be updating the blog regularly to reflect the tasks I have completed for the week and my thoughts and reflections regarding the project.
I have always been interested in how various factors such as a child’s environment and upbringing affect individual growth. To this end, I have taken classes to educate myself on health disparities and how these differences affect people. As a result, I became resolved to pursue a career striving to achieve equity in these sectors. In the spring, I took a course called, “Children’s Learning in Social Context,” which allowed me to further explore how play can be implemented to teach science and learning in unofficial learning environments such as museums. This course further sparked my interest in how play affects children and their development and the application of research in the real world. I am very excited and grateful to have this chance to explore the intersections between psychology and education. I eagerly look forward to everything I will learn and the skills I will gain this summer!
About the Project
The Growing and Learning Through Play curriculum is designed to educate parents of young children, aged 2 to 5 years old, on the critical role of play in child development. This curriculum is implemented across NYC, consisting of 8 sessions covering topics such as child’s play, language development, media use, and spatial skills. My role involves preparing materials for the parent curriculum and developing evaluations to assess the effectiveness of each session. In this process, I will review literature on young children’s learning and parent-child interactions, translating this research into more accessible formats for the public. I am excited to deepen my understanding of the impact of play on child development and explore ways to integrate these practices in everyday life.
Getting Started
I spent my first week familiarizing myself with the offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan and organized my tasks to clearly define my objectives and establish a detailed plan for the summer. I also had the opportunity to attend the 55th anniversary of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) by Cornell University Cooperative Extension in both Brooklyn and Manhattan. The event was both heartwarming and inspiring, filled with stories from directors, educators, partners, and participants about how the program positively impacted their lives and families just by their diet. What started as rudimentary, door-by-door sessions with only homemakers has evolved into a free workshop series, hosted by numerous community-based organizations and is now facilitated by prior participants as well. These stories highlight EFNEP’s effectiveness in reducing food insecurity of low-income families by improving their nutritional knowledge, fostering a sense of community, and providing them the skills and confidence to change their health and families’ lives. Witnessing the profound impact of EFNEP, I am excited about the potential of the Growing and Learning through Play curriculum to similarly transform the lives of families and young children.