Merrimack College’s Active Science® Combines Exercise, Play, and Scientific Discovery

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass., Feb. 15, 2017 -- Active Science, Merrimack College’s innovative, technology-based program designed to improve children’s physical activity levels while boosting their STEM proficiency, has released the results of a newly published study. In it, 72 children in grades 3 through 5 — all participants in the Active Science program — showed significantly higher physical activity levels and science performance, as compared to the control group. 

Pioneered by Dr. Kyle McInnis, associate dean and professor of health sciences at Merrimack, Active Science has been buoyed by a series of grants, including over $1 million in funding from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and has been implemented in 20 YMCA afterschool program centers, primarily in the Northeast. Program leaders plan to expand the initiative to 100-plus locations and 50,000 children by early 2018.

Active Science students wear pedometers and accelerometers during enrichment and afterschool activities, entering their own data to power STEM learning activities via the Active Science app. In addition to promoting physical activity and fun with peers, the app includes engaging science education activities and game-like features that recognize personal and team achievements.

Besides tackling rising rates of childhood obesity and lower performance trends in science and math, McInnis sought to develop a program that addressed the changing ways in which students receive and synthesize information.

“Research has shown that exercise stimulates learning in growing brains and that children show more interest in science learning when they collect and analyze their own data,” says McInnis.

It’s not only students in the afterschool programs who are benefitting from Active Science. Merrimack students who lead the program as scientists-in-training are gaining firsthand insights into the physical activity-to-learning connection by analyzing the aggregated data.

“It’s great to be able to have a positive impact through a social venture that allows us to reach so many kids,” McInnis said. “It also creates a unique opportunity for college students to experience a startup social enterprise as part of a national health and science initiative.”

About Active Science
Active Science, in conjunction with Merrimack College and the Merrimack Valley YMCA, combines physical activity and technology to deliver STEM-based learning experiences, primarily to disadvantaged children who need it the most. For more information, visit activescienceforkids.org.

About Merrimack College
Merrimack College is an independent, private college with robust programs in business, education, engineering, health sciences, and the liberal arts, whose mission is to enlighten minds, engage hearts, and empower lives. Founded in 1947 by the Order of St. Augustine in the Boston suburb of North Andover, its growing student body of 3,200 undergraduates and 575 graduate students come from 32 states and 31 countries to form an engaged community of thinkers and doers in an academic culture of care that emphasizes hands-on learning, global citizenship, and a quest for enduring relevance in an ever-changing world.

CONTACT: Jan Hunter at [email protected]