At Saturday’s South Side Science Festival on the University of Chicago’s campus, nine-year-old Misael Herbert hovered over a training dummy and listened intently as a UChicago Medicine volunteer explained that if Misael ever has to perform CPR, he can remember how fast the chest compressions need to be by humming “Baby Shark.” Misael, who lives in Hyde Park, had already examined snails through a microscope earlier in the afternoon and was looking forward to a liquid nitrogen demonstration with Fermilab scientist “Mr. Freeze,” his mom Melrinea Davis said. Misael loves science and when the family heard about the University’s annual day-long event through his school, they had to check it out.
“This is good for the community,” Davis said. “A lot of the schools don’t have the funding to let the kids get a lot of hands-on experience in science, so it gives them a chance to learn something they might not get to see in school.”
Davis and her son were among 4,500 attendees at this year’s festival, now in its third year. The South Side Science Festival —co-organized by the University’s Biological Sciences Division, Physical Sciences Division, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and Office of Civic Engagement—aims to bring the campus and broader South Side communities together to explore science in a fun, accessible way. From opportunities to control robots and 3D printers to panels on health trends and AI to a paper airplane design contest and explosive liquid nitrogen demonstrations, Saturday’s event offered education and excitement for visitors of all ages.
“It’s our hope that the festival sparked inspiration and showed that STEM can be fun and accessible, especially for our youngest attendees and those who might not otherwise be exposed to these subjects. We would love for events like this to be an entry point for our neighbors to keep the scientific momentum going by participating in one of the University’s STEM programs for local residents and, ultimately, consider exploring a career in a STEM field,” said Sarah Tinsman, program director for Inclusive Innovation in the Office of Civic Engagement and the festival’s lead organizer.
Stronger support
Organizers say volunteer support for the event more than doubled this year, with nearly 1,000 University students, staff, and faculty supporting either a science station or the event more generally. Whereas in years past the majority of event volunteers were graduate students in STEM divisions, this year volunteers represented units and roles all across campus, according to volunteer coordinator Lauren McNamara, a fifth-year Chemistry PhD student.
“It was really neat to see all these different parts of the University were coming together to help put this on,” McNamara said. Each year the event team has streamlined logistics and made it a little easier for attendees to engage with the University community and vice versa, she said. Building those bridges not only introduces people to STEM who might not previously have been exposed to it but also helps strengthen the science itself in the long run by inspiring a more diverse future STEM workforce—a central goal of the University’s broader Inclusive Innovation initiative.
“It’s critical because as scientists we’re addressing these big problems, and a problem is best addressed from a diverse set of views,” McNamara said. “Having people who think differently, who have had different life experiences, can only help. If everyone comes from the exact same background and is trained in the exact same way, they’re going to think about the problem in the exact same way, and you aren’t going to find creative solutions.”
Mutually beneficial connections
Outside a tent where their 13-year-old daughter and six-year-old son were busy learning about planetary science, Bronzeville residents Clarence and Regena Carson noted their appreciation for the event. “Our job is to put whatever we can in front of them—opportunities to expand their minds and opportunities that are also free and local, if possible, so this fits all those,” Clarence Carson said. “The University is big, they’re here, and they have all these opportunities to share with us. It’s pretty awesome that they’re using students to teach younger students and to inspire them to go into science.”
The Carsons’ son was fascinated by a demonstration about music and the frequency of sound as he’s recently started learning the violin, Carson said, and their daughter was a fan of the festival’s robotics and 3D printing areas. By putting on events like this with the community and inviting community members to take part in year-round on-campus programs like the Math Circles program his daughter participates in through the Mathematics Department, the University is putting its resources to impactful use for community and University participants alike, he said.
For participating scientists, like second-year graduate student Nathaniel Rowe, the festival is an opportunity to both engage with community directly and hone their communication skills, explaining their work and its relevance to a variety of people who may not be familiar with the complicated concepts they study. Rowe and his Physics Department colleagues led a series of demonstrations at their station designed to show how physical phenomena appear in the technology we use every day, like our phones, generators, and TVs.
“Having especially young people who are interested in technology and developing new technologies and exploring the fundamental physics associated with those technologies is very important in the long term, and it’s also important because kids are just naturally very curious, and it’s important to help that curiosity prosper,” Rowe said.
Not just for kids
Older festival attendees had plenty of activities to choose from as well, whether it was taking in a panel or voting for their favorite presenter in the Science Slam competition. Washington Park residents Tori Gillam and Brandii Hill, who both earned STEM degrees in college and now work in scientific fields, said they were drawn to the festival’s overall vibe (and the chance to spend a sunny fall Saturday outside on campus) and actually planned a whole STEM-centric day, sandwiching the festival between visits to the Museum of Science and Industry and the Museum of Surgical Science. Hill said she was most impressed with the projects shared by high school student participants in UChicago STEM programs and hearing about all the different areas of science the students already wanted to pursue.
“I didn’t even know what engineering was until my senior year when people said I should study it,” Hill said. “So, the more exposure that you get to all that there is out there, the more you can find your interests, the better.”