Author: Celeste Carmichael

This post feels especially relevant as I get ready to head to the NYS Fair today – where undoubtedly I will meet youth who have gained skills outside of school and are ready to tell me (and everyone else!) about them.

Ask a rural kid where they learned to tinker with tools, understand the seasons, or observe the life cycle of plants, and chances are—it wasn’t in a classroom. It might’ve been fixing a bike with an older cousin, collecting bugs by the creek, or watching mom force tulip bulbs in the kitchen window. These everyday experiences are brimming with science. But here’s the catch: they’re rarely recognized as learning. Not by schools. Not even by the kids themselves.

That’s what the Bridging Classroom and Home Learning Framework (BCHLF), a foundation of my dissertation, is out to change. Developed through a multi-year research project in collaboration with rural school districts and 4-H programs across New York, the BCHLF explores how structured classroom STEM and nature activities can be paired with flexible, family-centered learning at home. Through interviews, student journals, and fieldwork across multiple counties, the research uncovered something powerful: when youth take home a hands-on science activity and engage with a caring adult, their sense of curiosity, confidence, and science identity grows.

The project didn’t just observe—it created. One initiative paired in-class plant propagation lessons with take-home gardening kits. Families were invited to share observations, stories, and even photos of their bulbs blooming on kitchen counters. These small moments—of watering together, asking questions, or marveling at the growth of roots—became significant learning opportunities.

And the research backs it up. Students who participated in the paired learning experiences not only reported a greater interest in science—they were also more likely to connect classroom concepts to real-life situations and share their discoveries with others. Anecdotes about such sharing were reported by students, parents, and the classroom teachers.

This isn’t about more homework. It’s about playful prompts, flexible kits, and making space for learning to spill over from school to home and back again. At its core, the framework says: let’s stop drawing a line between learning and living. Whether it’s in a science lab or a backyard shed, kids are learning. Let’s recognize it. Let’s build on it. And let’s spark that “I’m a science person” confidence early—right at the kitchen table.

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Want to bring the Bridging Framework to your school, Extension program, or youth development initiative? Let’s connect—and cultivate curiosity across every learning environment. The Bridging Classroom and Home Learning Guide, found to the right under projects, walks formal and non-formal educators and parents through the basics.

For those that know me, it will come as no surprise that the thinking around instructional design is a part of what I’m continuing to study.  I’m working on bettering my understand of ways to engage young people so that they get excited about a topic, engage in dialogue, and see themselves as “learners”.  Truly – I want young people to be so excited about what they are doing in out of school time activities that there is light in their eyes and they are curious and excited – asking questions, having, and sharing experiences.

This week I worked writing up an evaluation study that I developed and lead 2 years ago, as we were just coming out of pandemic isolation.  The project leaned into the literature around affordances (ways to prompt action), youth development/thriving, instructional design, and online learning point to engagement with others and intriguing content as key factors in making knowledge and behavior gains. The paper that I’m writing describes the experiences and outcomes for involved families in a project called “Boots and Blooms”.  Boots and Blooms was developed as a part of 4-H Family Fun Online Learning – my sandbox for trying out projects and online learning theories. As the name may imply, Boots and Blooms is a winter gardening project and in this instance was offered to families in a rural upstate New York school district. Families registered for the opportunity, kits were delivered to homes by the staff, and families participated independently – being prompted by weekly e-mails, and interfamily dialogue through an online platform.  The evaluation was conducted to understand if the Boots and Blooms project design resulted in intended outcomes for family units.  The findings shed light on factors in online learning and project design that create engaging family experiences.

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Design Framework for 4-H Family Fun Online

Note: The opportunity affordance in this case is related to the value of registering for the project.  Registration provides value in that it allows for access to content or resources (the supplies kit), tracking, and updates. It will enable users to track progress, receive notifications, and stay informed about changes or new offerings, and security and authentication: content and conversations were in a secure LMS.  Registration also implies an interest from the families registering and the intention of setting aside time to participate.  The learning design includes dialogue prompts to encourage conversation between youth and caring adults, content delivered in short tutorials, an action based activity to help participants play and practice concepts, and notifications to nudge continued activity.  The expected potential outcomes are excitement/spark, continued care for plants, and dialogue.

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The evaluation included a couple of approaches.  I did a textual analysis of all of the written content – searching for cues in the language and photos that would communicate the purpose intentionally to the families participating.  And then I interviewed the parents of the families who did participate to better understand the outcomes of the projects.  The results were revealing and could help us to design activities and projects that are more likely to get desired results.

Interviewees noted that the Boots and Blooms project fostered lively conversations and sparked new interests, largely due to its novelty and dialogue prompts that ask youth to “talk to family, friends or neighbors”. The initial analysis centered on the interview questions. As we reviewed the responses, several connected themes began to emerge. Across the interviews, common ideas came up that linked the themes together.  For example, conversations with others were tied to family discussions, caring actions, and the way the project design. The materials delivered sparked learning and were also linked to the project design. Ease of use—especially the video tutorials and email reminders—related to both the project design and how youth were inspired. Finally, connecting with others who were doing the project was linked to caring, family discussions, and youth motivation.  Excerpts from the interviews can be seen below.

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Themes of interviews with excerpts quotes from the interviews:

Behaviors that I was listening for:	Themes shared by parents:	Interview excerpts:
Family dialogue	Dinner table conversations Talking with others to complete activities Connecting to others in the project Novel Experiences	“we had the most unique dinner table conversations” “talking with others outside of the family encouraged relationships” “when we saw others (in person) who were doing the project we had something to talk about” “the novelty of this experience gave us a lot to talk about”
Spark for learning	Novel experiences Materials were living > taking care of something Materials delivered > delivered by hand Open ended design	“the novelty of this experience was fun and exciting“ “the fact that the project involved live/growing materials helped us stay connected to it“ “materials were delivered by a person – it felt like a gift“ “the directions were not prescriptive and allowed for deviation as interested“
Caring behaviors	Designed to prompt caring Taking care of something Connection to others in the project Talking with others to complete activities	“taking care of plants was great – checking, watering, looking for changes built caring“ “the projects asked participants to share and ask for plants – different conversations than we typically have with others“ “when we saw others in person who were doing the project we had a reason to check in with them“ “reaching out to family, friends, and neighbors with something interesting to talk about helped create connections“
Project Design – Online Experience	E-mail reminders Dialogue prompts Value of quizzes Ease of use > video tutorials	“e-mail prompts helped keep us going“ “short video tutorials helped us know what to do“ “the (LMS) was hard to log into” “the (LMS) was easy to use and well organized“ “the questions and quizzes in the (LMS) were engaging“

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The textual analysis was also revealing.  An analysis of the words used in the materials indicated that what I was thinking was communicated in the parent/project resources about the project – wasn’t always there.  In an effort to keep descriptions simple, the directions didn’t always clearly communicate the intent.  This process of textual analysis or a pre-audience review could make any project design more effective at achieving results.  This process continued in my current research project related to the communication of the value of out of school time learning as communicated by schools and by Extension.  It is worth looking at your web content…are you communicating outcomes and value?  It can be eye-opening to review what we are expressing from a different perspective.

Overall, the findings will be useful considerations to lead continued research and evaluation about developing family centered online learning experiences.  The results could also be useful to any of us who are creating out of school time family experiences and content intended to get youth and families excited and engaged.

I would love to hear from you: Does any of this resonate with your work or life experiences?  What other out of school time learning experiences do you find particularly effective in engaging youth and families?

 

 

I’m interested in studying ways to help young people to see themselves as brilliant learners (think sparkle in the eye excitement), and problem solvers (tinkering and considering options with a willingness to take action).  As we know – the world has problems – large, small, and problems unknown to us yet that will need to be addressed.  I’m plowing forward looking for evidence of approaches to teaching and learning that will unleash more curiosity, know-how, and potential within our children.

This week I’ve been writing what will become the first chapter of my dissertation.  This chapter is  a review of research and writings, and my reflections about common ideas from the literature on how to grow confidence and competence in youth relative to STEM and nature learning.   While this interest could be applied for all youth everywhere, I’ve chosen to narrow the scope of my research to rural youth, partly because it has been my lived experience, and partly because I think there are some particular examples of known approaches (like 4-H, FFA, working on and playing in fields and farms) that could be helpful.

Without going too deep in this post, I’ll share that there has been quite a bit studied and written about related to non-formal STEM learning outcomes and benchmarks for growing youth enthusiasm for science.  And there have been studies connected to cultural and family learning that clearly suggest that when youth play and practice activities at home that could be related to STEM skills they are more likely to “get” science concepts in school.  Additionally, there are reports written about the value of connecting teachers and schools to the social/family learning at home, helping them to figure what students are doing that could influence how they see themselves in relation to learning.  What I have not seen is the intentional blending of out of school time learning into the formal classroom.  What if we did that?  What if we had a way to inspire non-graded/non-required out of school science play?  And what if we closed the loop by inspiring dialogue at home and at school about that play and practice?

In an interview that I did with a rural school superintendent on the topic of bridging in and out of school learning opportunities the superintendent likened the approach for building youth interests in STEM/nature with the approach that many take to building young athletes, “you need to start building the bench early – create opportunities, offer mentors, offer clinics, practice at home”.  Building the bench for sports is a norm, building the bench for scientists, problem-solvers, and caretakers of the earth might require changing the equation for how education is delivered.  It might include ensuring that there are plenty of opportunities of practice and play, ways to engage families, and not leaving the burden of education on schools alone.  And of course, every school and grade is a little different – there are specific opportunities available in certain locations, requirements that need to be fulfilled, and specific talents and experts available as well.

All this said, I do believe that there are ways to change the equation of delivering and honoring education without a huge investment.

Schools and community organizations can:

• assess and map local out of school time opportunities
• communicate opportunities to youth, families, and teachers through newsletters and social media so more families will know about local programs
• tie out of school time activities to syllabus or instruction so that they are more likely to intentionally happen
• include principles of informal learning (playful, not graded) deliberately
• include questions that prompt playful and interesting conversations between students and parents or students and students to talk and discover ideas and the value of experiences
• Offer professional development to teachers and families to help youth, families, and schools understand the value of offering and acknowledging out-of-school learning

Chapter 2 will describe a research project I did in 2021 to explore the value of at-home learning activities delivered online to families with a hands-on kit for play, practice, and conversation.  Resulting observations suggest certain attributes of activities to spark curiosity, dialogue, and connections.  I’ll write more about that next time.

One question for you… Think of a time that you experienced something outside of a typical classroom that helped you make sense of a complex STEM problem.  What was it?  What did it feel like to realize that you had an experience that helped you to understand a challenging situation? I’d love to hear your perspective – if you want to share…reach out or complete the following survey:

https://cornell.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8qpHiT2l9vpjup8

The last four years I have taken classes, written papers, thoughtfully considered issues  I see, researched opportunities, and created and implemented a research project deeply connected to my interests and experiences related to 4-H Youth Development.  I won’t say that it has all been easy – I’ve done this while I worked full time, been a mom, wife, friend, and pet owner, and been involved in my community.  But the journey has been healthy – it  kept my mind engaged in possibilities and curiosities during a time when other not-so-pleasant things were happening (including the pandemic, dad’s health issues, and eventual passing, kids launching to and beyond college, etc).  So now that the classes, proposal writing, and research are done – the time has come to document what I’ve been observing.

During September, I’ll be retreating away from the norms of life and doing my best to focus on starting to write the dissertation. I will not get caught up in perfect grammar or meaning-making so that I can push this cart a little forward. Tidying up can come later, but first, I need to put words on paper (via my laptop, of course).

I plan to blog here some of the basics to keep you posted on interesting findings and summaries and to keep me accountable.  The first manuscript/chapter that I’m working on is titled:

Igniting the Spark: Fostering Pro-Learning Behaviors through Play and Practice

In case I haven’t talked your ear off about my interests – my research is about bridging formal and nonformal learning that relates to nature and STEM…meaning honoring the activities kids do in the stream, in the garden, while searching for insects, or hunting for strawberries or deer(!) and helping them understand that the play that they do outdoors sets them up to be brilliant in the classroom and action makers in the community as they notice things that need to be addressed.

Here is to our work for kids, communities, families, and learning.