Educators around the world use these unique learning aids to teach early childhood, parenting, infant health lessons, and sex education. Smart babies add meaning and accountability by using wireless programming to track and report on caregiver behaviors. Tracked behaviors include care events, mishandling actions, time in a car seat as well as clothing changes. Baby includes four sets of curriculum and activities to help instructors create relevant and career-driven learning experiences. In Truckee High School's Adulting/Life Skills course, our curriculum is adapted based on student interest. Overwhelmingly each year students ask for child development experience and health lessons. The curriculum tool culminates with an experiential learning exercise encompassed in an extended care simulation experience with RealCare Baby. Through the care simulation experience participants gain the knowledge and skills necessary to become responsible caregivers.
We are working with our counseling team, special education department, and our ELD coordinator to encourage all students to take Adulting before graduation. Our goal is to use this tool to first, to help students realize the importance of waiting to engage in sexual activity, and thereby delay becoming a parent until they are emotionally, financially, psychologically, and socially ready to take on the heavy demands of parenting; and second, to introduce the importance and variety of skills needed in caring for an infant. We will spiral our lessons from our freshman-level health course and the California health education standards.
We would define success of this student by measuring student learning in the following categories after use of the RealCare baby tool:
• Media Influence on Decision Making • Healthy Relationships • Birth • Care and Needs of an Infant • Caring for an Infant • Handling Stress and Preventing Shaken Baby Syndrome • Safety, Health and Care • Attachment, Autonomy, Trust and Brain Development • Nurturing • Education and Literacy Development • Recreation and Play • Parenting Styles • Being a Parent - Hands-on Practice • Financial Support • Child Care and Day Care• Plans and Values • Influences Around Us • Communication & Self Esteem • Communication in Relationships • Relationship Continuum • Reproductive System, Fertilization & Conception • Family Planning - Birth Control • Benefits of Abstinence • HIV and STIs • Pregnancy & Prenatal • Development • Prenatal Exposure to Drugs or Alcohol • Infant & Toddler Development • Soothing a Crying Baby • Holding & Feeding • Bathing & Diapering • Schedule & Tracking • Emergency Procedures • Breathing Emergencies
This grant will fund a supplemental curriculum for our Adulting course. We will use these tools during an entire unit of this course where we take the health education standards covered in freshman health class and spiral back to them with hands-on practice. Students are encouraged to take this course before graduation with the long-term goal of the current instructors being that all students take this course before graduation.
This grant will be shared with all teachers of this course. We would be open to supporting other sites (Sierra High, Coldstream, etc) with this as a shared tool.
Yes, this would need to be grant funded.
We know this is a ton of money but we really have this course as a space to support student interest in life skills within a safe environment for learning and questions. Students have been asking for this for years, we would love to support them in their curiosity and as a researched supported way to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.