“Being Me” Summative Evaluation

The “Being Me” program was developed to bring the educational process to life through hands-on learning that promotes children’s awareness of health issues and encourages scientific inquiry in an art-focused curriculum supporting National Science Content Standards (now Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS). In 2009, the “Being Me” partnership – Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC), the National Children’s Museum (NCM), and George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GW) – received a five-year National Institutes of Health Sciences Education Partnership Award grant (#R25RR025132) to develop and promote health and inquiry-based science among youth, in collaboration with public elementary schools in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area, encompassing Washington, DC and Prince George’s County, MD. The program focused on five prioritized health topics (asthma, obesity, sleep, bullying, and sickle cell disease) that concern youth in these urban public school communities where high rates of poverty and other disparities in healthcare and health outcomes are common. This report describes results from New Knowledge Organization Ltd.’s Summative Evaluation conducted in the final two years of the “Being Me” project’s efforts, with specific focus on how successful the project was at achieving the program’s three objectives: • Increase students’ understanding of actions that will improve their health outcomes; • Teach students to become independent thinkers through the use of art and science activities; and • Promote students’ sense of self-efficacy in ways that could improve their health and the health of their families.