Saint Paul, Minn. (September 15, 2017) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has granted Twin Cities PBS’s STEM Media & Education Department a $1 million dollar Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA). This funding will support BRAINedu: A Window into the Brain/Una Ventana al Cerebro, a project that provides Hispanic children and families with bilingual media resources about brain structure and function, neuroscience careers and mental health.
BRAINedu will engage communities nationwide with standards-based content and programming, including educational outreach programs for youth and their families; training of educators and local health workers in Hispanic communities; role model media production of Latino neuroscientists, and the use of award-winning Twin Cities PBS productions on brain health-related topics like Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and depression. The multi-year project’s advisors include members of the National Council of La Raza, The National Alliance for Hispanic Health, The National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Resource Center for Hispanic Mental Health.
To accomplish BRAINedu’s outreach goals, Twin Cities PBS is tapping into its SciGirls STEM Partner Network. This national network includes 200+ partner organizations in 34 states and Puerto Rico, about a quarter of which are located in Hispanic communities and provide Spanish-language programming. More than 4,000 educators nationwide have been trained in Twin Cities PBS’ research-based principles of gender equitable and culturally competent STEM education, who have engaged more than 60,000 girls and boys at STEM-themed classes, camps, clubs, afterschool initiatives and more. BRAINedu will enrich and expand this existing programming.
“Twin Cities PBS has over thirty years of experience creating culturally responsive, standards-based STEM programming for diverse learners,” said the STEM Department’s Managing Director Rita Karl. “We are pleased to have this opportunity to work with—and learn from—our country’s diverse and rapidly growing Hispanic community.”
This project is funded by the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
About Twin Cities PBS
Twin Cities PBS (TPT)’s mission is to enrich lives and strengthen our community through the power of media. Established in Saint Paul 58 years ago, TPT now operates as a public service media organization that harnesses a range of media tools to serve citizens in new ways — with multiple broadcast channels, online teaching resources, educational outreach and community engagement activities.
For over thirty years, TPT has been public television’s national leader in inspiring young people, especially girls and youth of color, around the pursuit of STEM studies and career paths with PBS series like Newton’s Apple, DragonflyTV and its current flagship program SciGirls. For more information, visit TPT online, follow TPT on Facebook and Twitter.
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Contact:
Kristin Pederson, Director of STEM Project Development and Communications
[email protected] |651-229-1288.
© Twin Cities Public Television - 2017. All rights reserved.
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