At Mountain Vista School in Oracle, Arizona, we researched the impact of using CosmoKidz activities from Pre-Kindergarten through Second Grade, including a Special Education Class.

After 6 months of implementing CosmoKidz activities in a Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade classes, we found that children as young as 5 years can meaningfully engage in CosmoKidz conversations and contribute to decision-making around social and emotional issues relevant to them; that 15 interpersonal communication skills and actions improved over time; and, that these skills and actions carried over into other contexts. It was also noted that the SOAR theme played an important part in these developments.

Read what the parents, teachers and students had to say about this.

The data from teachers, parents and students confirmed the continued development of kindergarten through second-grade children’s communication, social-emotional and deliberative skills. In particular, the results of this 21/2 year research project have shown that:

• the essential communication skills upon which dialogue and deliberation rest can be learned and practiced with children as young as 4 years of age. 
• brief but daily or almost daily conversations/activities about aspects of children’s social worlds increases awareness, fosters compassion, and carries over into non-classroom contexts.

With continued support from the CMMI and in partnership with the Kettering Foundation, we extended our evidence-gathering to include a rural and an urban school in a different social-cultural milieu in the state of Louisiana. In this project we also included many more classes in Kindergarten through Second Grade.

Results from the first year, Louisiana
2017-2018

The Louisiana project was extended into a second year for the urban school only, with a total of 9 classes participating.

The results of year 2 continued to show very positive improvements arising from CosmoKidz activities. Especially encouraging is the noticeable improvement of students’ communication/deliberative skills across contexts.

The end of year one of the school culture study was interrupted by the pandemic. We resumed data collection during the 2021-2022 academic year as the school had returned to in-person instruction and COVID restrictions were more relaxed.

At Mountain Vista School in Oracle, Arizona, we researched the impact of using CosmoKidz activities from Pre-Kindergarten through Second Grade, including a Special Education Class.

First year pilot project, Oracle, 2014

After 6 months of implementing CosmoKidz activities, we found that children as young as 5 years can meaningfully engage in CosmoKidz activities; that 15 interpersonal communication skills and actions improved over time; and, that these skills and actions carried over into other contexts. It was also noted that the SOAR theme played an important part in these developments.

Read what the parents, teachers and students had to say about this.

The second year of the project covered more classes, including a pre-K and special education class, and the effects of activities were analyzed over a full year. We also included specific test sessions to assess the children’s deliberative capacities. It was found that

• The SOAR skill set did carry over for those children who participated in the 6 month pilot project.
• The use of CosmoKidz had a positive impact on children’s social behaviour in the class, in the playground and at home.
• The communicative skills fostered through CosmoKidz had a positive impact on children’s deliberative capacity.
• the positive impact of CosmoKidz activities increased with the frequency of the activities being engaged in.

Third year project, Oracle
2015-16

The data from teachers, parents and students confirmed the continued development of kindergarten through second-grade children’s communication, social-emotional and deliberative skills. In particular, the results of this 21/2 year research project have shown that:

• the essential communication skills upon which dialogue and deliberation rest can be learned and practiced with children as young as 4 years of age. 
• brief but daily or almost daily conversations/activities about aspects of children’s social worlds increases awareness, fosters compassion, and carries over into non-classroom contexts.

With the continued support of the CMM Institute and the Kettering foundation, we extended our evidence-gathering to include a rural and an urban school in a different social-cultural milieu in the state of Louisiana. In this project we also included many more classes in Kindergarten through Second Grade.

• Every teacher said using CosmoKidz made a positive difference in their students’ behavior and actions.
• These skills carried over at home and in other non-classroom contexts.

Children developed deliberative skills and those skills improved with each successive deliberation.

Results from the second year, Louisiana
2018-19

The Louisiana project was extended into a second year for the urban school only, with a total of 9 classes participating.

The results of year 2 continue to show very positive improvements arising from CosmoKidz activities. Especially encouraging is the noticeable improvement of students’ communication/deliberative skills across contexts.

Entire school longitudinal study, Louisiana

We are also trialing a whole-of-school approach in Louisiana based on an entire school consisting of 27 teachers and 17 pre-k through 4th grade classes.  This research will focus on the changes that occur when the entire school is using CosmoKidz and engaging in deliberation on a regular basis.  The results of this research will become available in July, 2020.

Developing the activity topics

Most of the 31 topics in CosmoKidz were chosen by kids themselves. We asked a variety of children ranging from 5 to 9 years in age to tell us what they face in their lives that they find difficult and challenging. The scenarios on each of the 31 cards represent the topics that these children expressed to us (we added a few topics like taking care of the environment, showing love and kindness, and conscious breathing because we think they are important too). As we were developing the questions and activities, we also piloted these activities with a variety of children in different learning contexts, different socioeconomic levels, and in two different countries—the United States and Norway. Significantly, the issues of concern to children were the same across countries.

Trials in Romania

The CosmoKidz activities were trialed in Romania over 2016 and 2017 with a particular focus on using Cosmokidz in different settings to see the possible different effect on young children. Three institutions were included: two public institutions in a large city and a small private institution, based in a small city in Romania. And once again, despite a very different culture, CosmoKidz activities were found to have a positive impact on communicative skills.