Challenges & Lessons Learned
Additional funding is key when rolling out an educational outreach initiative for a program. Stations and community organizations are more than willing to partner if the fit is right, but the level of their commitment depends upon funding. Organizations will distribute materials and include information in their newsletters as much as possible, but to ensure that workshops and training are in place, local affiliate partners require funding.
There were a finite number of educational outreach materials available for distribution to stations and partner organizations. This led to materials rationing to ensure supplies through the end of the season. Creating materials that are reproducible or available online in a PDF format has been a helpful solution, but many partners and audiences prefer professionally printed resources.
Keeping track of and documenting educational outreach efforts of all of community partners, non-grantee stations, etc., is challenging, due to the limited budget.
The viewing age of Cyberchase is very broad, which poses exciting educational outreach opportunities as well as challenges. Our primary goal is to serve and build our target audience (8- to 11-year-old children/math content for grades 3-5). As we move forward with the project, we hope to balance resources so we can reach out to the younger viewers who are tuning in.
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