UCI School of Education ribbon-cutting event in Santa Ana set for August 14

UC Irvine’s School of Education, in partnership with the city of Santa Ana, Northgate Market and the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative, is hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony on 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 14, at the bus stop on the northeast corner of Main Street and McFadden Avenue in Santa Ana.

This event will celebrate the installation of a giant abacus at the bus stop as well as new educational signage inside the Northgate Market across the street. The signs and interactive exhibits are designed to spark conversations about science and math, increase familial discussion and promote learning.

This event is free and open to the public. There is a retail parking lot behind the bus stop.

Andres Bustamante, UC Irvine associate professor of education and lead researcher in the Playful Learning Landscapes project, and Wendy Gomez, director of the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative, will share brief remarks to open the ceremony. Santa Ana councilmembers Jessie Lopez and Benjamin Vazquez, along with representatives from Northgate Market, are also expected to attend.

In 2020, the National Science Foundation awarded Bustamante a four-year, $2.57 million grant to support his research project “Stimulating STEM in the City: Co-Designing with Latiné Families to Promote Informal STEM Learning.”

Bustamante’s research team, which includes June Ahn, UC Irvine professor of education, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University professor of psychology, has partnered with the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative to co-design a series of installations in public urban areas to encourage engagement in informal STEM learning. SAELI hosted 20 design sessions with local families at the project’s onset, inviting them to tell stories and share how they imagine their community. Empowered with that insight, the team is working to create spaces that represent the community’s cultural values, goals and history.

Northgate Market, a mainstay of Southern California’s Latino community, emerged as another ideal partner in this initiative. The signs to be installed at the Northgate Market on Main Street and McFadden Avenue will encourage math and science learning as families pick out their produce or order food at the deli.

The giant abacus at the Main Street and McFadden Avenue bus stop is intended to promote math learning while families wait for transportation. The abacus and signage are the first two Playful Learning Landscapes installations in the NSF-funded project, with several more planned to debut this fall at Santa Ana’s Madison Park and Angels Community Park.

The research team is also collaborating with the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network to share its designs and outcomes with other cities around the world.