Family Social Science at the MN State Fair

Driven to Discover SignFamily Social Science staff, students and faculty will be in a variety of buildings at this year’s great Minnesota Get-together.

Kristen Johnson, Prevention Science Program Coordinator, is volunteering as an educator at the Minnesota Newspaper Museum where she’ll get to run the Miehle printer and the linotype machine. If you’ve never seen how ink gets onto paper, you can watch her run a variety of materials, including a daily newspaper and posters of the first amendment. The Museum has fun giveaways for the whole family. In addition, Julie Michener, Senior Communications Specialist, is a STEM Day at the State Fair volunteer which is held the first day of the Fair, Thursday, August 23, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Dan Patch Park.

Driven to Discover

Gretchen Buchanan, FSoS graduate student, and Nicole Morrell, Community Program Associate in the Institute for Translation Research, are part of a research project in conjunction with FSOS Professor Gerry August’s Grand Challenges course. Play the Brain Games in the UMN’s “Driven to Discover” building at various times throughout the Fair that will test how you think and make decisions about emotions. They are interested in research subjects ages 12 to 25 (those 17 and under need a legal guardian with them) and those completing the Brain Game receive a thank you gift!

Renada Goldberg, FSOS graduate student, will also be collecting data at the State Fair on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2:30-8 p.m. She’ll be recruiting participants and collecting data on-site for her project, The Precious Family Study, where she is using a family centered lens to examine how precarious employment factors impact positive family coping mechanisms, family adaptation to employment stressors, and family resilience. This study is open to anyone 18 years old or older, employed or looking for work, and who have family care-taking responsibilities.