University of Cincinnati

Family Science Academy Verbatim Open-ended Survey Responses – Parents

What activities did you find most helpful for you?

Speakers

• Guest speakers
• Speaker presentations
• The lectures while children were in class- particularly Joy Moore
• The information presented by the presenters
• The speakers were excellent, very inspirational and informative
• Classroom sessions
• The Math program
• The parent and educator lectures
• Changing attitude about my ability to do math
• The presentations from the various speakers
• Water usage activity
• Parent presentation
• The parent talks on Math Readiness and Setting High Expectations
• Session on Math
• The presentation very informative. The speakers were very good
• The presentations were awesome
• Nuances for admissions- info on what to study, but get the impression that grades was most important.
• Presentation topics
• I enjoyed the presentations each week. The information shared reinforced my thoughts about education. Having families work together on science at home brought cohesiveness.
• The information viewed during the lecture presentation
• College Math Readiness lecture.

Working With My Child

• Working with my children
• In general- a common experience with my child
• All the take home activities/homework
• The homework

Tower Competition

• Tower activity
• The activity we did together
• STEP fellow project
• The final (tower) project was both challenging for my daughter and myself.

Robotics

• Lego robotics program
• Robots
• Structure building/Lego experience
• Simple machines

Everything

• All. I enjoyed every activity presented in the program.
• All activities
• All

Parent Advocacy

• Parent advocacy
• Parental advocacy
• Learned about parental advocacy (being supportive of your child in academics).

Orientation Presentation on STEM

• Dr. Kukreti’s talk was eye opening. It excited the kids and adults.
• Different types of careers in STEM
• Tour the engineer building

Parent Networking

• Brainstorming with other parents
• The group discussions

What activities did you find most helpful for your child?

Science Labs

• The chemistry projects
• Exposure to science
• Water usage
• The science classroom activities
• Color exp. with M&M's.
• Labs
• Science
• The actual hands-on experiments my child like to M&M experiment
• Hands-on activities without parents
• Raise awareness of how science is connected to day-to-day life.
• Talking about things to do in the fields and actually doing and seeing those kinds of things
• The hands-on activities

iSPACE

• iSPACE
• Robotics
• Robots
• The Lego was interesting but most of the ____ was not watched. Great opportunity - highly disappointing.
• Lego
• Robot programming
• Lego robotics

Homework

• Homework
• The homework encouraged critical thinking about everyday activities
• Homework assignments
• Homework assignment with Skittles
• The water activity really opened her eyes to how much water we used.

Miscellaneous

• The project (family) at the end
• The activity we did together [working with my child]
• All
• We enjoyed all the projects, especially the final project
• Activities that make math and science fun while learning
• My son has very little interest in Science and I was hoping it would spark some. I don't think the program has done this. However, the program is structured well, and should not be at fault because of his lack of enthusiasm. Either a kid likes Science or not.
• Math
• Class experience

Family Science Academy Verbatim Open-ended Survey Responses – Students

List three (3) things that you learned in the program this summer.

Physical & Chemical Changes

• How to make chemicals
• I learned the difference between physical and chemical change
• I learned about chromatography
• Coloring on candy has no taste
• Chemistry
• How to separate colors
• I learned how candy changes colors
• Chromatography
• Physical changes
• I learned how chemicals affect water
• Color changes 
• Common items like candy and food coloring are science
• I also learned about chemistry
• How things change colors 
• That food coloring can be mixed to make other colors
• How to change color from candies
• I learned what chromatography means
• Salt solution
• That when you dip markers in water the water changes color
• I learned about chemicals

Aspects of Building

• I learned how to build things
• Building a tower
• Where the strongest part of a structure is
• What type of building materials are strong
• I learned how to make strong towers
• The use of common materials to build structures
• How hard it is to build something
• I learned what was more stable
• About balance
• Structures are made with a strong base
• How to build a sturdy structure
• How to make a model skyscraper
• That paper is strong
• Stableness
• How to make a structure with everyday things
• I learned how to construct a strong building
• I learned about building structure in a balanced way
• What you can do with small household items
• I learned about building structures     
• Building towers is harder than I thought
• Structure
• Build skyscraper       
• And I learned how to build a model of a building
• I learned how to build a better structure

Water Usage

• I learned how much water we waste
• About water
• That we use a lot of water
• I learned how water flows
• I learned that we use lots of gallons of water
• How much water I use
• How much water humans use
• That we use a lot of water in a week
• I learned how much water my family uses
• That I use more water than I thought
• My household uses a lot of water
• Water come out faster in a bottle
• How much water I use
• I learned about water using charts 
• I also learned some water uses
• How much water we use in a week
• More about water and how much we use
• A lot with water
• How much water I use daily
• How much water humans consume 
• Water 
• How water can be used

Simple Machines

• I've learned more about simple machines
• That a bathtub is a simple machine
• Different types of machines
• What simple machines are
• Simple machines
• I learned about different simple machines
• Pulleys
• Wedges

Basic Science Information

• A lot of science
• Science
• Hypothesis
• I learned about hypotheses     
• What a hypothesis is
• Science is fun
• What being a scientist feels like
• To make an experiment
• We learned about making a hypothesis

iSPACE

• How to work the RCX
• I learned what iSPACE was
• iSPACE
• I learned that there are Lego teams
• Program robot     
• More about robots
• How to program a robot
• I learned how to use iSPACE
• Lego league
• I learned about robotics
• Programming robots
• How to program a robot
• That you engineer with Legos

Engineering

• Engineering
• Some basics of engineering
• I learned about engineering
• I want to be an engineer
• What an engineer is and does 
• I learned that engineering isn't that bad
• Boys are more into engineering than girls
• Programming of computers first started with engineers
• Engineers are very important to our everyday life
• How much engineering can be

Miscellaneous

• Team work
• I learned about the STEPS program
• I learned what STEM stands for
• Math
• America is behind other countries in graduates
• How to know others’ names
• Safety
• How different countries are smarter than USA
• Nothing
• I learned that doing something educational during the summer may not be boring
• How many rooms there are
• USA has the longest summer break
• Nothing
• I learned a better way to use estimation
• I made new friends
• How to work together
• Each other