Building Relationships with Land 

Dr. Christine Lee, clee@labschool.ucla.edu

Dr. Megan Franke, mfranke@ucla.edu

School of Education and Information Studies

This academic year, Intermediate teachers are implementing a multidisciplinary curriculum on the history and importance of land. Therefore, Dr. Megan Franke (PI) and Dr. Christine Lee (Co-PI) are collaborating with Intermediate teachers from Rooms 1 & 2 to examine how students’ understanding of land changes over the academic year. Our data collection will include copies of students’ gardening journals that teachers are using to continuously document and reflect on the importance of land, classroom conversations of students sharing what they wrote in gardening journals, and photographs of students planting and taking care of campus plants. These data sources will be analyzed to track the changing understandings of how students define land, how important it is to have relationships with the land, and the importance of taking action in ways that sustainably support land. Participation in this study is voluntary and will remain confidential. Any questions about the project can be directed to Dr. Christine Lee at clee@labschool.ucla.edu or Dr. Megan Franke at mfranke@ucla.edu.

Storytelling and Writing in Kindergarten STEAM Curriculum

Dr. Megan Franke (PI

Dr. Christine Lee (Co-Investigator)

School of Education and Information Science (SEIS

This year, Dr. Megan Franke (PI) and Dr. Christine Lee (Co-Investigator) will collaborate with Early Childhood teachers Kelly Peters, Eric Varela, and Arlen Vidal-Castro to research how UCLA Lab School Kindergarten students develop language, storytelling, and writing skills. As Kindergarten students are still developing how to decode and comprehend text, it is also important to continuously cultivate narrative and creative storytelling skills. Our research aims to explore how we can support students’ skills and identities as dynamic storytellers through wordless picture books. The research will include: video recordings of classroom activities on storytelling and photographs of students’ written stories. Any questions about the project can be directed to Dr. Megan Franke at mfranke@ucla.edu or Dr. Christine Lee at clee@labschool.ucla.edu.

Understanding how children see complex event types

This winter quarter, Ekaterina Khlystova, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Linguistics, will conduct a study with Early Childhood I students (3-5 years) that examines how young children perceive complex events like trades. This study looks at how children of this age see different events in the world around them, as they are learning words that describe those events. In order to determine how children match new verbs to events they see in the world, we need to know whether they see those events in the same way as adults do. We will interview children ages 3-5 (Early Childhood I Classroom) for 15-30 minutes. This study consists of a single session in which the child is introduced to a “very picky” puppet. The child will then watch pairs of silent videos, with one video showing a girl and a boy playing with some toys and another with a small change to the video. By asking your child to help the puppet sort the pairs into ones that “match” and ones that don’t, we can see whether changes to some parts of the event (for instance, how the toy moves, what the toy is, who is moving the toy) are more or less noticeable than other changes. We will video record the sessions. Our hope is to examine how children perceive complex social interactions like “trading”, especially as it relates to early verb learning. Participation in this study is voluntary and will remain confidential. If you have any questions, or wish to opt out of this study, please contact the principal investigator, Ekaterina Khlystova, at ekhlystova@g.ucla.edu.

Proposed Study of Children’s Land Approach Implementation

This year, Drs. Nicole Mancevice (Principal Investigator) and Lab School’s Vice Principal Renata Gusmão-Garcia Williams will collaborate to study UCLA Lab School’s implementation of Children’s Land in Early Childhood classrooms. Children’s Land is a nature-based curriculum approach that the school plans to implement during the 2023-2024 academic year. Given that this is the school’s first year implementing Children’s Land, the research will focus on documenting and mapping how the approach is incorporated within the school context and curricula as well as initial reflections related to program outcomes. The research will include: teacher interviews; classroom observations, photographs, and audio recordings; and collecting planning and classroom documents regarding the Children’s Land approach implementation. Any questions about the project can be directed to Dr. Nicole Mancevice at nmancevice@labschool.ucla.edu.