We survey hospitalized children and hospital school teachers to make sure that the work we're doing is helpful and is meeting our goals and the needs of hospitalized kids and the teachers who serve them.

Goals:
By participating in creative projects and exploring natural materials from North Carolina, pediatric patients will experience support for their emotional well-being through a sense of enjoyment, calm, or positive self -concept, and a reconnection to the natural world they normally call home.


Students will develop enthusiasm and interest in hands-on science through exploring natural objects during one-on-one and/or group instruction.


We will be a model for natural science programming in children’s hospitals.


EXCERPT FROM 2010 PROJECT EVALUATION:

The NCAECIC feels that this program has successfully met its stated goals.  We know that there is nothing normal about being in a hospital. But having the opportunity to receive individual attention while exploring and discovering phenomena in our natural world is truly a bonus.  Laughing, wondering, and learning is a wonderful way to take the emphasis off a student’s present location and place it outside the walls of the hospital and into the natural world of North Carolina.  The science program that has been reviewed gives hospitalized students a temporary feeling of well-being and at the same time, advances their learning in a living world. 

Download the entire evaluation document below!

NUMBERS:
  From July 2009 to July of 2010, 446 individual children were served.  This  is approximately 100 more individuals than we served the year before.  In addition, program had over 1350 contact hours, which is about 300 more contact hours than the year before  (children are seen an average of 3 hours each).