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MATH & SCIENCE LITERACY CONNECTIONS

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Participants say:

"What's the BIG Idea? has opened up my mind to many rich experiences for the children at my library programs. Parents are motivated the program because they discover that learning is exciting and that they are capable of leading their children in exploring, experimenting, and observing their surroundings and learning through carefully crafted activities, frequent reading, and thoughtful conversation." —Public Librarian in Houston, TX

"I never knew learning could be so much fun! Building, sorting, collecting data—the children in my programs are clamoring for more!" —New York public librarian

The final What's the BIG Idea™ conference will take place on November 9-12 at the Hilton in Burlington, VT. Librarians from Houston, the state of Delaware and the Clinton-Essex-Franklin Library System in upstate New York will arrive on Sunday afternoon, November 9.

We will meet at 5 PM for welcome and introductions, followed by a group dinner. After dinner we'll explore Discovery Centers set up for the group to experience. We will work all day Monday and Tuesday (with evenings free), and adjourn at noon on Wednesday. Participating librarians will receive the final What's the BIG Idea? Librarian Manual.

What’s the BIG Idea?™ is a program created by Mother Goose Programs™ with funding provided by the National Science Foundation. This program provides professional development and materials to help librarians incorporate math and science into their programming and resources for young children ages 4-7 and their families. Sixty librarians have to date engaged in two conferences focusing on "big" ideas critical to children’s acquisition of basic math and science skills and concepts: Patterns and Relationships, Numbers and Operations, Change Over Time and Geometry and Spatial Sense.

Some background for librarians new to the project:

The Mother Goose Programs team in Vermont administers the program, with assistance from a National Advisory Panel.

Based on the work we do during the project —conferences, in-library experiences, community partnerships and thinking and re-thinking book selections and investigations—we will create a professional development model for libraries large and small, urban and rural throughout the country.

To accomplish this, we will investigate these questions:

How can the public library become a science and mathematics learning center for young children and their families?
What information and training do librarians need in order to make science and mathematics learning come alive for young children?
What information, knowledge and materials do librarians need in order to infuse science and mathematics content into their practice, programming, collections and displays?
Who are the community resource partners who will augment this effort?
How can the answers to these questions be disseminated nationally?

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