# Health in Our Hands: Building and sustaining student engagement in genomic and environmental health sciences through a community-school partnership (Health in Our Hands)

> **NIH NIH R25** · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $225,000

## Abstract

Contact PD/PI: Bayer, Irene
Project Summary/Abstract
 This proposal requests supplemental funds for our current SEPA grant, Health in Our
Hands: Building and sustaining student engagement in genomic and environmental health
sciences through a community-school partnership, 1R25GM132964-01 to expand our
research protocol. Health in Our Hands connects the science classroom to the community to
give youth and adults an understanding of modern concepts in genetics through curricula
designed to meet the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The current project is
creating summative, pre/post assessments for our curriculum to measure impact of student
learning. Teacher partners expressed the need for more assessments to measure student
learning throughout the unit for both formative assessment purposes and requirements to
have more grades measuring student performance throughout the marking period. To
investigate the feasibility, embedded classroom-based assessments were developed for the
first unit on diabetes adapting the Next Generation Science Assessment Group process
(Harris et al) and piloted with teachers and their students. Results indicated that teachers
found value in the assessments and used them in multiple ways.
 This supplement will primarily serve to enhance Specific Aims: #1 and #2 of our parent
SEPA: 1) Assess the impact of a coherent set of place-based, technology-rich, NGSS-
aligned science curriculum materials on student genomic and environmental health learning
and interest in STEM careers across middle and high school grades; and 2) Conduct
innovative professional learning experiences bringing together secondary teachers, informal
educators, and community-based experts to support curriculum and mentoring activities by
strengthening our current project through improvements in assessment of the impact of the
curriculum materials on student learning and enhancing teacher data literacy.
 The objectives of the new component of the project will: 1) Design, test and analyze a full
set of pre/post and “embedded assessments” (end of learning set assessments) for both of
our middle school curricula; and 2) Build teacher data literacy to understand and use NGSS-
aligned assessments. This proposal is significant as it takes place in predominantly
marginalized Communities of Color experiencing opportunity gaps in state assessments and
success in science overall. Our work with teachers in these schools seeks to address some of
these inequalities by empowering teachers to prepare students in 3-dimensional NGSS
assessment and use data to inform instruction for success in science learning.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10684384
- **Project number:** 3R25GM132964-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Irene Bayer
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $225,000
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10684384

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10684384, Health in Our Hands: Building and sustaining student engagement in genomic and environmental health sciences through a community-school partnership (Health in Our Hands) (3R25GM132964-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10684384. Licensed CC0.

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