At a time when career opportunities in STEM fields are growing, a new UChicago initiative has started providing support to South Side public schools interested in expanding their STEM curriculum and preparing their students to pursue STEM career pathways.
The new STEM Corps initiative, part of the University’s Neighborhood Schools Program (NSP), paired 19 UChicago students with science teachers in five South Side schools over the past school year, offering STEM-centric in-school tutoring and project-based support and expanding on NSP’s long-running work that places hundreds of UChicago students in local schools as tutors and classroom assistants each year.
“Instead of reinventing the wheel, we wanted to help our long-time school partners build capacity to advance STEM-focused work that they were already trying to do,” said Neighborhood Schools Partnerships Director Brandi Snodgrass, who oversees NSP within the Office of Civic Engagement. “Each school partner has different interests and capacity so leveraging our NSP students and resources and developing the STEM Corps was a way to help them achieve their unique visions.”
Hyde Park Academy biology and biochemistry teacher Dan Mullens sees the STEM Corps as a win-win for his high school students and UChicago students alike and looks forward to growing the partnership in years to come. His students, he says, have been motivated by connecting with UChicago students and the campus environment but the experience also offers them access to career considerations and pathways they might not have otherwise encountered.
“You never know when you’re going to have that eureka moment where you’re inspired. It's valuable for my students because most of the careers that will be created will probably be in those fields,” Mullens said. “I think [STEM fields are] now growing and the more we can highlight that and work on those skills, it’s really going to bring our students to that next level where they need to be to be successful.”
Launched in 2023, the STEM Corps was one of several University efforts funded by UChicago’s Inclusive Innovation Fund. The Inclusive Innovation initiative, led by UChicago in partnership with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Argonne National Laboratory, and Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory and coordinated by UChicago’s Office of Civic Engagement (OCE) and the Office of Science, Innovation, National Labs, and Global Initiatives (SING), aims to generate a diverse talent pipeline in the sciences and spur economic growth on the historically under-resourced South Side by preparing youth for and connecting them with the jobs of the future.
This spring, a group of high school students from Hyde Park Academy made their way to UChicago’s campus where they presented recent projects they’d completed about photosynthesis to a group of UChicago graduate students and student employees and volunteers representing the STEM Corps. The UChicago students offered the high schoolers feedback on their work and later answered their questions about STEM areas of study and careers over lunch.
For Hyde Park Academy senior Kingsley MacCarthy, the visit was an opportunity to finetune his project and learn more about what a future in STEM could look like.
“I feel like it was a good way to expand our learning environment because not only did I receive critiques, it also gave us a great heads up about things that might occur or obstacles we might face in the long run,” MacCarthy said.
Caitlin Radovan—a UChicago first-year from Utah studying biological sciences—has been working closely with staff and students at Hyde Park’s Bret Harte Elementary School since joining the STEM Corps last fall. The group has been planning a science fair for the school’s middle school students which they hope to host in the fall. The event would feature demonstrations from UChicago students and Radovan and her fellow STEM Corps participants have already met with Bret Harte students on several occasions to get their ideas on the kinds of projects they could present at the fair.
“It was interesting going around seeing these sixth graders come up with these ideas because a lot of them have never done a science fair before so it ranged from space lasers that could blow up the moon to seeing if plants can grow in the dark,” Radovan said. “Just to see the spectrum of different ideas and asking them ‘How do you plan to build this?’ It was really cool seeing them have that aha moment and connecting those big ideas to much smaller things that they’ve learned throughout the year.”
At the UChicago Charter School in Woodlawn, STEM Corps participants helped plan and lead a similar event in April. The STEAM Carnival drew more than 120 attendees representing more than 70 students and 40 separate families to the school’s gym where volunteers and partner organizations hosted scientific demonstrations, games, and resource stations. Kate Carter, middle school STEM instructional coach at UC Woodlawn, says then-fourth-year UChicago student and STEM Corps participant Josephine Schall was instrumental in supporting her and her fellow teachers to put on the event and ultimately getting their students and their students’ families more excited about STEM.
“At every turn, Josephine would volunteer to take something on to make preparation a little bit easier. She met with us several times in planning sessions prior to the event, so it felt like a real collaboration,” Carter said.
The STEM Corps, Hyde Park Academy’s Mullens says, has also exposed his students to the college experience in a tangible way — a connection that was especially apparent on his class’ recent visit to UChicago’s campus.
“It was a nice way for our students to see themselves—not just see adults that are like, ‘Hey, take my word for it,’” Mullens said. “They could get perspective from a student who’s actually enrolled in college, so it was really cool.”
