If the 2024 No Small Matter Molecular Engineering Fair had its own hashtag, it would definitely have been #ThatsSoCool.
The phrase echoed over and over through the William Eckhardt Research Center on April 19, where the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) hosted the fair for 120 middle school students from four neighborhood Chicago Public Schools on the South Side.
What was so cool? Depending on which student you asked, it might have been making instant snow. Or wielding a 3D pen to create a Pokémon character, making gooey “worms” out of sodium alginate, or building Rube Goldberg machines for a ping-pong ball to navigate.
The annual half-day fair is one of many interactive programs at PME designed to inspire the next generation of engineers and build a more diverse pipeline of professionals entering the sciences by igniting youngsters’ curiosity and passion for STEM. This year’s participating schools were Bret Harte Math & Science Magnet Cluster School, Ray Elementary School, Wadsworth STEM Elementary, and Amelia Earhart Options for Knowledge School. UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Dean Nadya Mason—a physicist herself—welcomed the students, engaging them with questions about how science and engineering can be used to solve problems while encouraging them to keep up with their math homework, too.
The No Small Matters Engineering Fair aligns with the goals of 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). The initiative aims to help build STEM education and career pathways for South Side students, educators, and workers, with a twofold benefit in mind: building a more diverse pipeline of students into STEM fields and spurring inclusive economic growth on the historically under-resourced South Side.
Each of the fair’s dozen hands-on activity stations brought a scientific principle to life for students. “Every station I went to, it taught me something new, and it’s also related to my science class,” said Shannon, an eighth grader at Bret Harte. She especially enjoyed a demo of the Meissner effect: a magnet levitating over a superconductor submerged in liquid nitrogen.
Students write in their “passports” at each station to record what they see. “They told us to bring a pencil, so I thought we were just going to write the whole time — but then I saw a bunch of models and stuff and was like, this is gonna be different,” Shannon said.
Her science teacher, Adam Schwartz, brings students to the fair every year. He says that it energizes them about classroom topics, and it excites him to see them engage. “To see my students having multiple opportunities to do hands-on activities with the science concepts we have learned or will be learning is great. They see that whatever we’re doing in class has practical purposes outside the classroom.”
Meeting science role models
Shannon also enjoyed meeting the UChicago undergraduate and graduate scientists who hosted the demos. Talking with them “makes me very excited” about the possibilities for a career in science, she said. “I know it took them a while to get here, right?”
Cesar Castro Rubio, a second-year PhD student at PME, hosted a phononics demo that he and his colleagues built from scratch. “Our goal was to show the kids that vibrations can manifest as something you can feel, something you can hear, and something you can feel as temperature,” he explained. “One kid was like, ‘I didn’t know sound was this cool!’”
From Castro Rubio’s perspective, the fair is as much about introducing students to role models as it is about explaining scientific concepts. “I’m Hispanic. When I was growing up, I didn’t really see many Hispanic scientists,” he said. “Students coming here and seeing ‘oh, the scientists that are doing this type of work kind of look like me’ — I think that’s very important.”
Castro Rubio’s own experience growing up in California and going on to become an honors physics graduate of Wesleyan University taught him that it’s crucial to capture students’ interest in STEM early. “When I was their age, it was a moment where I could have gone off the path,” he said. “To really reel them in and keep them interested in science and STEM is very important.”
Middle school students are at exactly the right age to develop a long-term interest in STEM, said Laura Rico-Beck, PME’s assistant dean of education and outreach. “There’s a lot of research showing that in the U.S., middle school is the age where interest and a sense of belonging in STEM really falls off a cliff.
“Elementary school kids love to play and explore and they’re always naturally designing experiments, but by middle school they tend to lose interest. So we’re being very purposeful in targeting that age in ways that really engage them.”
It’s working; just ask Bret Harte sixth-grader Cameron. “I like science because it’s a lot of cool things you get to do, and a lot of experiments that come with it,” he said. “And the people are nice and cool to interact with.”
The UChicago students did “an amazing job interacting with the kids, explaining everything to their level” said Anna Al-Sayed, Bret Harte math and science teacher. “It’s really hands-on, which the kids love.
“As a Chicago Public Schools teacher, we don’t get to do many hands-on experiments like this. But if students don’t have those hands-on experiences, I can talk to them all day and it doesn’t click as well.”
“It’s very rewarding to see their faces light up when they get something for the first time,” agreed Omar Kazi, a third-year PME PhD student. He co-hosted a popular demo featuring kid-powered generators with his second-year colleague Jireh Garcia, who hopes that the fair and other outreach will help STEM fields achieve a better balance of race and gender.
“Looking back to my middle school years, I wish I would have been introduced to science at an earlier age,” Garcia said. “Women, especially women of color, should be more represented in STEM, so I hope we got to plant a little seed today.”
STEM learning has wide-ranging benefits
Inspiring potential scientists is a goal of PME’s education outreach, but it’s not the only goal, according to Rico-Beck. “We don’t want every student we engage with to become a scientist, but our goal is for them to be able to make that choice,” she said.
Whether students continue in the sciences or not, STEM learning helps them develop a broad range of competencies by giving them confidence to explore new concepts while building skills in critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. And, Rico-Beck added, the nature of experimentation strengthens resilience by giving students “permission to explore and fail and try again.”
This spring, PME students and postdocs will meet and engage even more CPS students, visiting more than 20 middle school classrooms and hosting a PME STEM Showcase at the Museum of Science and Industry. This summer, they’ll work with high school students in the After School Matters STEM Lab Internship.
