The goal of the University of Southern California (USC)/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center funded Wonderkids Program is to develop medical and cancer themed curricula for elementary students in an after-school program in the Los Angeles area. Wonderkids is a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers program that focuses on the various “ologies” within the STEM fields with hands-on curricula and guest speakers from the fields addressed in these curricula. The curricula described in this article introduce the fields of audiology, gastroenterology, and osteology/orthopedics and the way cancer can affect parts of the body that are covered in these fields.
Wonderkids students at three elementary schools, grades one to three were given a test before and after the curricula were taught to assess the impact of the educational intervention. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.001) between the scores of the pre-test and the post-test for all topics.