February 20, 2026
NURTURES, an educational program that helps parents and teachers introduce children in preschool through third grade to hands-on, inquiry-based science activities, will be tested in select Georgia schools beginning in the fall of this year. WestEd, a national nonprofit research, development, and service agency that works to improve learning and increase opportunity for children, youth, and adults, will study the impact and implementation of the program, and conduct a cost analysis study. The Georgia impact study will focus on students in first through third grades.
WestEd’s impact study will be a randomized control trial (RCT) in which half of the schools in the study will use the platform and the other half will not. WestEd will determine what difference, if any, NURTURES has on students’ science, literacy, and mathematics achievement. The study is supported by an $8 million award from the Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program of the U.S. Department of Education. RCTs are considered the “gold standard” in research methodology.
The project team is being led by principal investigators Dr. Cathy Ringstaff at WestEd, Dr. Charlene Czerniak at UToledo (who developed NURTURES), Dr. Kadir Demir at Georgia State University, and co-principal investigator Dr. Mark Loveland at WestEd. UToledo’s Grant Wilson and Christopher Wojciechowski are the program director and assistant program director, respectively, for NURTURES.
“We are delighted to be involved in studying the impact of this promising program,” said Ringstaff. “NURTURES is now 15 years old and earlier analyses led by the University of Toledo indicate that it has helped boost students’ science and mathematics test scores. Our study will continue through 2029 and also will address how the program is implemented as well as investigate what investments of funds and other resources are needed for successful implementation.”
This summer, facilitators with the project will provide professional learning to teachers throughout Georgia to prepare them to implement NURTURES and engage families through take-home materials and community events so that they can support science instruction outside of the classroom.
Classroom and family implementation of NURTURES will begin in the fall and run through 2029.