Edu Atlas
A Project Funded by Alliance of Chinese Americans San Diego
Vivian Wu
Team Members
Amber Wang and Paul Zhang
Amber Wang and Paul Zhang
Background
To protect children and communities during the COVID-19 crisis, schools nationwide have transitioned to remote learning. Yet with children at home, much of the burden for education falls upon parents — they must juggle the difficulties of remote work with taking care of young children and ensuring they continue to learn productively. As the Times of San Diego wrote, the responsibility that parents now bear for their children is “a task that few were prepared for.” Parents already face considerable challenges adapting to remote work, so trying to set aside time to look after children and find activities for them significantly adds to their burden. Overwhelmed, parents often occupy their children with video games or YouTube — fun but unproductive activities. Children too face considerable challenges because of remote learning. Without easily accessible and engaging learning opportunities beyond those provided by school, they may find it difficult to nurture their creativity and grow intellectually. With multiple forecast models predicting that COVID-19 is likely to remain a threat well into the next school year, at-home learning continues to present challenges to parents and children for the foreseeable future.
To protect children and communities during the COVID-19 crisis, schools nationwide have transitioned to remote learning. Yet with children at home, much of the burden for education falls upon parents — they must juggle the difficulties of remote work with taking care of young children and ensuring they continue to learn productively. As the Times of San Diego wrote, the responsibility that parents now bear for their children is “a task that few were prepared for.” Parents already face considerable challenges adapting to remote work, so trying to set aside time to look after children and find activities for them significantly adds to their burden. Overwhelmed, parents often occupy their children with video games or YouTube — fun but unproductive activities. Children too face considerable challenges because of remote learning. Without easily accessible and engaging learning opportunities beyond those provided by school, they may find it difficult to nurture their creativity and grow intellectually. With multiple forecast models predicting that COVID-19 is likely to remain a threat well into the next school year, at-home learning continues to present challenges to parents and children for the foreseeable future.
Goal
Edu Atlas (https://eduatlasorg.wordpress.com) is an easy-to-navigate website designed to help parents and children during the COVID-19 crisis: it provides an organized platform of learning resources separated by category and age for children to browse through and productively engage in, allowing parents to focus on their work or find time for themselves.
With activities ranging from virtual tours of national parks to popular book collections and arts & craft projects, Edu Atlas aims to provide a diverse supply of quality activities for elementary students, encouraging them to be curious and intellectually engaged at home.
Aside from activities, Edu Atlas encourages compassion and kindness through its #CardsforCaregivers initiative, inviting children to create appreciation cards for medical personnel to make a positive impact.
Currently, Edu Atlas has over 350 curated activities, with more activities added every couple of days. Over the past three months, we have gained over 6,000 views and over 1,500 visitors; however, we hope to help more people in San Diego County and beyond. Therefore, the bulk of our current effort is directed towards outreach (emailing schools and news organizations to reach communities who may find our website helpful).
Edu Atlas (https://eduatlasorg.wordpress.com) is an easy-to-navigate website designed to help parents and children during the COVID-19 crisis: it provides an organized platform of learning resources separated by category and age for children to browse through and productively engage in, allowing parents to focus on their work or find time for themselves.
With activities ranging from virtual tours of national parks to popular book collections and arts & craft projects, Edu Atlas aims to provide a diverse supply of quality activities for elementary students, encouraging them to be curious and intellectually engaged at home.
Aside from activities, Edu Atlas encourages compassion and kindness through its #CardsforCaregivers initiative, inviting children to create appreciation cards for medical personnel to make a positive impact.
Currently, Edu Atlas has over 350 curated activities, with more activities added every couple of days. Over the past three months, we have gained over 6,000 views and over 1,500 visitors; however, we hope to help more people in San Diego County and beyond. Therefore, the bulk of our current effort is directed towards outreach (emailing schools and news organizations to reach communities who may find our website helpful).
Method
1. Continually update Edu Atlas website (powered by WordPress) with fun and engaging activities organized into category and age group.
2. #CardsforCaregivers: continue to email partner hospitals (battling at the frontlines of COVID-19) with scanned appreciation cards handwritten by children visiting Edu Atlas.
3. Outreach to parents and children who may benefit from Edu Atlas.
1. Continually update Edu Atlas website (powered by WordPress) with fun and engaging activities organized into category and age group.
2. #CardsforCaregivers: continue to email partner hospitals (battling at the frontlines of COVID-19) with scanned appreciation cards handwritten by children visiting Edu Atlas.
3. Outreach to parents and children who may benefit from Edu Atlas.
Update
(August 3, 2020)
We are in the process of finding more resources/activities to update our website with, and are currently doing more outreach to elementary schools, youth organizations such as Boys & Girls Club and YMCA, and libraries using our newly bought GSuite email address (team@eduatlas.org). We've been featured on a couple library websites, and our next steps include to continue our outreach as well as update our social media pages on IG and FB with pictures of our website, cards, content, impact, etc.
We are in the process of finding more resources/activities to update our website with, and are currently doing more outreach to elementary schools, youth organizations such as Boys & Girls Club and YMCA, and libraries using our newly bought GSuite email address (team@eduatlas.org). We've been featured on a couple library websites, and our next steps include to continue our outreach as well as update our social media pages on IG and FB with pictures of our website, cards, content, impact, etc.
(July 1, 2020)
Edu Atlas is going great! We've updated our website with some new resources (we will update it weekly) and have also begun to study up on Facebook ads to increase our outreach and impact. We're currently trying to share our website and #CardsforCaregivers initiative to relevant organizations such as Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, community centers, and libraries. A couple libraries have already responded favorably and have added us to their resource page. We are also reaching out to local city governments to promote our website (the Vice Mayor of San Ramon - where Paul is from - has helped us promote on Facebook and their website!).
For #CardsforCaregivers, we are planning on expanding to 3-4 more hospitals to maximize our impact, especially since these past few weeks have seen new COVID-19 hotspots pop up around various states in the US.
In addition to outreach, we're also planning on partnering with some other youth-led projects with similar goals. For example, there are many initiatives led by high schoolers to write cards for seniors (#CardsforCaregivers is to healthcare workers). We could put their website link on our website and they could put ours on theirs so we can help as many people as possible!
Edu Atlas is going great! We've updated our website with some new resources (we will update it weekly) and have also begun to study up on Facebook ads to increase our outreach and impact. We're currently trying to share our website and #CardsforCaregivers initiative to relevant organizations such as Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, community centers, and libraries. A couple libraries have already responded favorably and have added us to their resource page. We are also reaching out to local city governments to promote our website (the Vice Mayor of San Ramon - where Paul is from - has helped us promote on Facebook and their website!).
For #CardsforCaregivers, we are planning on expanding to 3-4 more hospitals to maximize our impact, especially since these past few weeks have seen new COVID-19 hotspots pop up around various states in the US.
In addition to outreach, we're also planning on partnering with some other youth-led projects with similar goals. For example, there are many initiatives led by high schoolers to write cards for seniors (#CardsforCaregivers is to healthcare workers). We could put their website link on our website and they could put ours on theirs so we can help as many people as possible!