When a group of sixth graders at Wadsworth Elementary in Woodlawn were tasked with thinking up an invention this past winter to solve a problem they faced, their creations didn’t disappoint. One student designed a pair of glasses with a built-in flashlight to accommodate bedtime reading. Another thought to incorporate a cooling system into suit jackets to make for more comfortable formal occasions. Another reimagined a charging port for wireless headphones that left more space on her desk. The assignment was just one way University of Chicago students in the Neighborhood Schools Program’s South Side STEM EdCorps are working to bring hands-on STEM concepts and an emphasis on design thinking and problem solving into local classrooms.
“The kids have all sorts of ideas and I feel like they might not always have opportunities to get them out,” David Curry, a UChicago first year and STEM EdCorps participant who leads lessons at Wadsworth twice a week, said. “So, if you can sit there and get them talking about something they’re passionate about, not only does it light up their face, it lights up my day knowing I was that kind of outlet for somebody.”
Wadsworth is one of four local schools working with NSP and Hyde Park Labs’ Southside STEM Station to incorporate focused STEM programming into their curriculum. Sixteen UChicago students are currently participating in the program across Wadsworth, Bret Harte Elementary in Hyde Park, Beulah Shoesmith Elementary in Kenwood, and Andrew Carnegie School in Woodlawn.
“This is an opportunity for our NSP student participants to provide meaningful complementary programming in really critical areas and growing career fields for these local kids and for us to strengthen another link in the network of community partners we work with throughout the year,” NSP Director Brandi Snodgrass said.
Last year, Snodgrass teamed up with André Westhelle, director of Hyde Park Labs’ Southside STEM Station and a former CPS teacher, to offer more support for STEM education in neighboring schools. Westhelle, who had already been piloting a new curriculum in several local schools, helped train UChicago participants in the STEM EdCorps to teach lessons on topics like coding and electrical circuits from his curriculum, as well as lessons on inventing from the Illinois Student Invention Convention. Rooting the lessons in design thinking and problem solving, Westhelle says, has been essential.
“With the way that AI and automation is happening, a lot of those remedial skills are going to be quickly replaced and what we really are going to need—regardless of what field you’re studying, whether it’s STEM or not—our society is going to need people who can think critically and solve problems,” Westhelle said. “We want to instill in students that the process of innovation and creation is really anchored on learning from mistakes and trying a lot of things until you get something. There are few, if any, things that have been created that didn’t go through several if not hundreds or thousands of iterations before finally figuring it out. I think we often still have this kind of binary narrative in school of right or wrong, pass or fail. So, it’s about trying to get away from that and really allowing students to have a space where they feel safe in taking some of those risks and making mistakes because that’s where a lot of the learning is really happening.”
In a recent STEM EdCorps session, Wadsworth STEM Coordinator Michelle Warden says she saw not only the future benefit but the emotional impact of that mindset shift in action. While Curry and another NSP instructor were leading a lesson on electrical circuits, a student who typically disengages in class was noticeably absorbed in the project.
“She was a different person,” Warden recalls. “She can be argumentative when you try to get her to join in and there was none of that for the entire period this time. It’s really nice to have someone other than us come in sometimes, it really seems to catch the kids’ attention in a new way.”
Building relationships with college students who attend a top university right in many of her students’ backyards, too, Warden said, can be transformational for them, whether it’s through STEM EdCorps or any of the other partnerships Wadsworth has forged with UChicago over the years.
“I’m hoping one of the things [our students] take away is they can see that there’s not some mystery about who can access these careers and these places,” she said. “These are just other human beings, [the UChicago students are] just normal kids like them, and our students can aspire to reach these heights and see themselves in those spaces as well.”