This poster will present preliminary results from an afterschool program that aims to increase tweens’ interest in health and health science, their health literacy, their health-related self-efficacy, and their awareness of the important connection between their everyday health behaviors and their ability to maintain their health and prevent disease. The program is centered in the school library and the school librarian serves as a partner in facilitating the literacy activities. In this poster, we will focus on the divergent experiences of two seemingly similar tween participants in our program, Danielle and Tamira, and how their differing experiences may have contributed to differences in outcomes, such as the degree of changes in their level of interest in health and the broader sciences (science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields), in their health literacy levels, in their levels of health-related self-efficacy, and in their engagement in relevant health behaviors.

Poster accepted for iConference 2014.