Teaching, mentoring, and community engagement

SiS and its community partners have trained more than 1,000 Northwestern students, faculty, and staff in iniatitves ranging from informal STEM mentoring to science communication for lay audiences.

Rigorous evaluation of SiS-led programs reveals

• Dramatic gains in career- and community relevant skills including teaching, mentoring, listening, leadership, writing, and communication
• Large increases in social justice mindset
• Strong support for trainees’ mental health and wellness
• Exposure to varied career paths and professional networks, leading directly to careers.

Building trusting, sustainable relationships

Core to SiS’s mission is the commitment to

• Longstanding relationships with Chicago Public Schools, Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago, Evanston/Skokie District 65, Evanston Township High School, McGaw YMCA/MetaMedia, Youth and Opportunity United, Family Focus

• In a given year, more than 1,500 teachers, students, and staff will be supported by SiS initatives
• HELIX magazine: more than half a million visits last year; SiS work featured in Discover, New York Times, and other national media.

A leader in research on STEM mentoring and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Pedagogy

• Boys & Girls Clubs of America selected SiS as the lead curriculum and staff training developer for a new DIY STEM program (launching August 2023). The program will support more than 5 million youth at 5,000 clubs across the country.
• A $2.5 million NSF award to study long-term mentoring impacts on grad students and youth in Science Club mentoring program
• MENTOR – The National Mentoring Partnership’s “Elements of Effective Mentoring Practice – STEM” handbook features Science Club as an exemplar of mentor traning and support.  The handbook features only 7 programs nationally.
• For 15 consecutive years, SiS programs have received highly competitive funding from the National Institutes of Health Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program.
• 2016 Arts & Sciences City of Distinction award, Phi Beta Kappa Society. One of four organizations honored in Chicago for bridging the arts and sciences
• 2013 STEM Impact Award from the Afterschool Alliance and Noyce Foundation – one of two programs selected nationally.
• Received more than $700,000 in philanthropic and corporate funding in last five years
• Building effective, community-directed STEM education programs for basic scientific and engineering research grants; AY19 supported $138 million in proposals
• Current leader of $10M NSF-Simons grant community outreach initiative

Connecting Basic Research to Community Needs

SiS community partnerships and educational programs are extensively leveraged to fulfill the “Broader Impacts” requirement for many federally funded basic research grants.

• SiS currently supports ~$40 million in active research awards.
• National Institutes of Health T32 training grants leverage SiS programming for graduate trainees to learn new teaching, mentoring and community engagement skills.

SiS Alumni Apply Their Skills in the Community

Knowledge and skills learned during SiS-led programs allow alums to launch independent community initiatives of their own.

• Northwestern University Brain Awareness Outreach, co-founded in 2010 by Science Club Alumni Shoai Hattori and Jessica Wilson. The program has reached more than 1,000 high school students and hundreds of teachers in Chicago Public Schools.
• Morning Mentors, a literacy and math program at Nichols Middle School in Evanston, was co-founded in 2018 by Science Club Alum Shannon Brady.
• Jugando con la Ciencia, a bilingual after school club conducted in Spanish at Washington Elementary School and Evanston Public Library, was co-founded by Science Club Alumnae Emma Flores and Leida Tirado-Lee.