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Bovaird, engineering faculty receive EPA ‘healthy schools’ grant

CYFS
Jim Bovaird (far right), founding director of the MAP Academy and associate professor of educational psychology, joins UNL architectural engineering faculty (from left) Josephine Lau, Clarence Waters and Lily Wang in an EPA-funded study to examine schools’ indoor environmental effects on students from kindergarten through 12th grade. (Photo credit: Greg Nathan / University Communications.)

Advanced methodology sets the foundation for a UNL team studying the effects of school environment on student performance.

CYFS faculty affiliate Jim Bovaird, founding director of the MAP Academy and associate professor of educational psychology, joins faculty from the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction for a four-year study of schools’ indoor environmental effects on the academic achievement of students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Full Article

Molfese to lead $1.4 million study of toddler sleep habits

CYFS Faculty Affiliates Victoria Molfese (right) and Kathy Rudasill work with a toddler wearing an actigraph that monitors sleep patterns.
CYFS Faculty Affiliates Victoria Molfese (right) and Kathy Rudasill work with a toddler wearing an actigraph that monitors sleep patterns.

ZZZs don’t always come easy for children still learning their ABCs.

Accordingly, three CYFS faculty affiliates are studying the developmental implications of toddlers’ sleep habits – and the factors that might determine whether they sleep like a baby. Full Article

CYFS earns $3.2 million grant to assess Getting Ready intervention

A CYFS research team has earned a $3.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant to explore whether an intervention approach that bridges living rooms and classrooms can also span the persistent achievement gap facing disadvantaged children.

Dubbed Getting Ready, the CYFS-designed intervention aims to strengthen parent-child relationships and foster family-school partnerships that improve the educational prospects of children at risk for developmental delays. Two of Getting Ready’s creators, CYFS Director Susan Sheridan and CYFS Research Associate Professor Lisa Knoche, are now leading a study of its ability to help these struggling children close gaps in cognition, language skills and social-emotional maturity as they enter preschool. Full Article

Eccarius receives $1.2M grant to train educators of deaf

Malinda Eccarius
CYFS faculty affiliate Malinda Eccarius is working toward improving deaf education throughout Midwestern schools.

CYFS faculty affiliate Malinda Eccarius recently received a four-year, $1.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant aimed at helping 25 K-12 instructors earn teaching endorsements in deaf education.

Eccarius’ “Mountain Prairie Upgrade Partnership-Itinerant” (MPUP-I) project will prepare instructors in regular and special education to become itinerant teachers – those qualified to assist students who are deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) but take classes with their hearing peers. Full Article

Sheridan, Glover, Kunz, and Bovaird awarded grant from IES for CBC in Rural Communities

cbcCongratulations to Drs. Susan M. Sheridan, Todd Glover, Gina Kunz and Jim Bovaird on their recent $3 million, four-year grant, “CBC in Rural Communities,” awarded in March 2010.

Amanda Witte is project manager. The grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), will be housed jointly in the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools (CYFS) and the National Center for Research on Rural Education (R2Ed). Full Article

CYFS receives $10M grant to launch National Center for Research on Rural Education

The National Center for Research on Rural Education
The National Center for Research on Rural Education

The Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools announces The National Center for Research on Rural Education (R2Ed).

This nearly $10,000,000, 5-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences (IES), is under the direction of Drs. Susan M. Sheridan (PI and center director), Todd Glover, Gwen Nugent, Gina Kunz, and Jim Bovaird. Full Article