Lena Lee (EDT) was awarded by Ohio Children's Foundation for a project called "Reggio Emilia Project-Based Learning in Low-Income Preschools." The project study will focus on enhancing low-income young children’s brain development, language development, and social skills through Reggio Emilia project-based learning. This Reggio Emilia project-based learning project is play-based and hands-on, and therefore, young children will constantly engage in interesting, challenging, and extensive projects that will enhance their abilities to solve problems and develop cognition and language competencies (e.g., Bergen & Fromberg, 2009; Edwards, Gandini & Forman, 1998; Vygotsky, 1978). The project will also be strong in documenting children’s work and progress in depth not only to provide how and what children learn to teachers and families. Its thorough documentation is also to honor children’s work and experiences by valuing the development of the whole child; physical, socio-cultural, linguistic, emotional, and cognitive development of each child (García & Weiss, 2016).

Given the needs of low-income young children’s critical learning experience, this project is placed in low-income preschool classrooms in Hamilton, Ohio. A total of approximately 120-240 children will participate. The children are racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse. There are also some pre-service teachers of the Primary Education Program of Miami University per semester participating in the project. It will be a two-year project (2021-23).