Tumble Media Awarded Second National Science Foundation Grant

Tumble Media is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded its second National Science Foundation grant. "¡OYE Tumble!" will explore how bilingual STEM kids podcasts can strengthen science identity for children and their families through family science talk.

In 2020, Tumble launched Tumble en Español, the first Spanish adaptation of an English-language children’s podcast, leading the way in multilingual children’s podcasting. "¡OYE Tumble!" will leverage Tumble and Tumble en Español to unlock the potential of STEM podcasts for all families.

In partnership with Associated Universities, Inc. and Florida International University, "¡OYE Tumble!" is a three-year project that will produce 17 bilingual science podcast episodes in English and Spanish. Together, the team will engage youth, families, and community leaders in the co-design of Spanish-language STEM podcast episodes, and generate knowledge about the podcast listening habits of Latino families with children between the ages of five and nine. With this data, they will contribute foundational research on how families could leverage podcasts to support their children’s STEM identity through family science talk. Over 100 families in the United States will participate as designers, shaping the project’s model of culturally sustaining podcast episode production.

The project's senior leadership team includes Tumble Media’s Sara Robberson Lentz, Marshall Escamilla, and Lindsay Patterson. The team also includes Dr. Remy Dou, Associate Professor for the STEM Transformation Institute at Florida International University, and Nuria Net, CEO of Shake It Easy Media, who serves as executive producer of Tumble en Español.

“Family plays a major role in children’s learning about who they want to be when they grow up,” said Dr. Dou. “‘¡OYE Tumble!’ will expand our understanding of what are the values, contexts, topics, and goals that families want to hear featured in STEM-related podcasts, and how these add to deeper engagement and family conversations.”

Sara Robberson Lentz, Tumble co-creator, is the principal investigator on the grant leading the project with AUI. She notes the accessibility of podcasts for Latine families to talk about STEM topics together. “Though afterschool programs, science camps, and museums are a great way to engage children with STEM and begin to cultivate their identities as scientists, these activities can be costly and difficult to access for many families, including those in which English is not their first language,” she said.

“This grant gives us the opportunity to build on our vision to create high-quality bilingual science podcasts for kids,” said Lindsay Patterson. “We will be leveraging the power of podcasts to create the next generation of STEM professionals and citizens who understand how science works.”

“I'm so proud to be part of this grant,” said Nuria Net, who has a wealth of experience creating multilingual audio content. “This is incredibly important news not just for children's podcasting but for Spanish-language podcasts in general. Not only will we be producing more seasons of Tumble en Español, but the research we gather from ¡OYE Tumble! will help us understand how bilingual STEM kids podcasts can strengthen science identity.”

Click here to read AUI’s press release and learn more about this project.