Formative+eval

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= Formative Evaluation Paper due Monday...  = Our formative evaluation will focus on gauging the educational content and appeal of our proposed program as it applies to our target age group, children ages 6-9 years old. As we believe that so much of environmental awareness comes from understanding the science behind food growth, our episode will surround the topic of gardening. For educational content, we will be assessing their prior knowledge pertaining to growing fruits and vegetables in specific settings - from preparing plots of land to cultivating the food. For appeal, we will be testing whether kids not only understand the context of the episode (and can learn from the lessons we will embed in our overall message) but also if they like our proposed format.

Due to the nature of our idea and what it entails, we will be catering our formative evaluation plan to the needs of this specific episode for content. In terms of appeal, our questions will broadly gauge the "coolness factor" of our playground idea, and the many features that a playground in a fantastical land may have. We will have a series of Yes or No questions, as well as a few open-ended questions, to draw upon our target age's insight and interest in our topic and format alike. A few sample questions from our plan are listed at the bottom of this paper.

The source of our data will come mainly from Francie's theatre. Francie has offered the services of her children's theatre in Charlottesville, VA, where she has been (and will continue to be) piloting questions for the benefit of our project. Specifically asking children in our age group 6-9, she will be gathering their responses in written and recorded segments for us to analyze and decode.

Specifically, our ever-evolving idea is that our characters will a)encounter a problem in the live-action segment, b)learn the intricacies of a solution during the fantasy segment, but still be able to c)transfer the knowledge into their real lives at the end of the day. For this episode, our characters are presented with an area-wide tomato scare, which we believe will be a real life (read: relatable) problem. As a result, all tomatoes are pulled from the market. At first, our protagonist will not necessarily see the nature of causality and the complexity of such a problem; however, he/she will soon make connections of how the tomato scare might impact him/her by recognizing the widespread use and distribution of the popular fruit (i.e., there's no sauce for his pizza, ketchup for his French fries, no spaghetti sauce, etc.) Our character will send a message/text/tweet/wall post to his/her other playscapers to meet at the playground and discuss what to do about "the tomato problem."

In the second segment, the fantasy world segment, our characters decide that they have to grow their own food in order to find a workable solution to the tomato scare. They figure that by starting a vegetable garden, they can somehow take charge of their food sources, and it is something that others in all different parts of the country can relatively do with ease as well. They reason that this action plan will ensure that they will have safe and edible food, and they decide that the first vegetable they plant will be tomatoes. The students begin to learn lessons on how to garden. They go through trial and error with experiments to figure out the best way to carry through their idea. They examine various methods by examining starting vegetables from seeds; buying plants that have already been started; and even growing vegetables hydroponically. They ask their "Uche" friend about the differences between such options. He, ever-wise and all empowering, helps answer questions, uses such powers as super speed, super strength, super wind and rain power, to show various weather effects on gardening conditions. The garden eventually grows and through time-elapsed photography, viewers can see the "fruits" of their gardening labor.

Lastly, in the last segment of our show, the characters transform back to real children (not animated); they say goodbye at the playground (until next time) and return to their own homes, where they will aptly apply the knowledge that they had acquired in fantasy land. The idea here is that the viewers of the show transfer what magically happened in animation to what is an authentic learning experience at home. This follow-up allows viewers of our episide to identify with the problem, the characters, and the solution possibilities so that they may feel empowered to go "from screen to green."

The goal of the formative evaluation is to sharpen our awareness of this project's overall potential effectiveness. Knowing the children's background knowledge about growing, the plant life cycle, gardening, and the ups and downs of producing fruits and vegetables will help us figure out appropriate experiments to align our activities with their readiness levels of comprehension. Further, the data will aid us in understanding common misconceptions and potential biases that we may have through the evaluation.

Gathering data at the intersection of content and appeal, we can shape the curricular components of our episode. It is our aim that the overall scope of the program will be presented this way in a well researched, tested entertaining and engaging medium.


 * CONTENT QUESTIONS**

I'm going to ask you a few questions to find out some more about you and what you think. This is not a test, and there are no right or wrong answers. Please just do the best you can.

1. Have you ever tried to grow anything, like flowers or vegetables? Y/N

If yes: What have you tried to grow?

2. How do people grow tomatoes?

4. What do you need to grow plants or vegetables?

5. Where can you grow tomatoes?

Do you think that you can grow tomatoes... On a farm? Y/N In a backyard? Y/N On a rooftop? Y/N In a barrel? Y/N

6. How long does it take to grow a...

(I don't think these timeframes are going to mean anything to kids in our target age. What are we trying to get at here? That some vegetables don't take that long to grow?)

Tomato? 0-1 month more than 1 month-6 months more than 6 months-1 year more than 1 year

Lettuce? 0-1 month more than 1 month-6 months more than 6 months-1 year more than 1 year

Watermelon? 0-1 month more than 1 month-6 months more than 6 months-1 year more than 1 year

Orange? 0-1 month more than 1 month-6 months more than 6 months-1 year more than 1 year

Beans? 0-1 month more than 1 month-6 months more than 6 months-1 year more than 1 year

7. If you take the seeds from the tomatoes that you eat at home and plant them, what would happen?


 * APPEAL QUESTIONS**

- MAGICAL PLAYGROUND = = Great. Now I'm going to ask you some questions to find out what you think is fun.

Do you like or dislike playgrounds? Do you: __dislike playgrounds very much__ dislike playgrounds __neither dislike nor like playgrounds__ like playgrounds __like playgrounds very much

If they like: What are your favorite things to do on a playground?

Imagine for a minute that you could build your own playground. The playground can have whatever you like.

Please tell me about your playground.

What would you like to do on your playground?

Pretend that you could make a magical playground.

What does it look like?

What would you like to do on it?

= = = = =**SUPER POWERS**= If you could have a superpower, what would it be? How much would you like or dislike to have the following super powers: (use a smiley scale? it's on my PPT on Joe's site if you want it :))


 * Ultimate strength
 * Super speed
 * The power to heat things up
 * The power to move heavy things far away by blowing on them
 * X-Ray vision
 * Invisibility
 * Super memory
 * Extra arms or legs

=What would you do with this power?=

Please pick the three animals that you like best. Please tell me the one that you like first best, second best, and third best. Chipmunk Squirrel Monkey Bat Frog Goldfish Hamster Ferret Possum Skunk Salamander Lizard Cricket Butterfly Ladybug Grasshopper Bee