South Side Showcase spotlights summer STEM projects
Argonne National Laboratory kicks off first-ever STEM Showcase with STEM and workforce development partners from Chicago’s South Side
image: STEM learners line up to participate in one of five STEM Challenges held throughout the day at the South Side STEM Showcase.
Credit: (Image by Argonne National Laboratory/Seth Hammond.)
Students, mentors and volunteers came together at one of Chicago’s renowned historical sites to demonstrate their summer STEM pursuits.
More than 150 students and their mentors gathered at Chicago’s Pullman State Historic Site in early August to showcase their passion for STEM and the projects they completed in their summer STEM programs.
Organized by the Institutional Partnerships team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory for the Argonne in Chicago initiative, the showcase marked a first-of-its-kind event in the area, uniting students, educators and leaders from 20 STEM and workforce development organizations.
Beneath multiple vibrant tents staged across two adjacent plazas at the Pullman State Historic Site, event participants connected with STEM leaders and representatives from local education and workforce development organizations. They explored diverse career paths, participated in STEM challenges and gained firsthand insight into the critical role that STEM education plays in shaping the future.
“By gathering students from all of these organizations’ summer programs, they can see a bigger picture, meet students with similar interests and see a future for themselves among their STEM peers.” — Jessica Burgess, Argonne STEM education partnerships and outreach manager
The first-ever showcase is the beginning of many things to come, said Argonne Institutional Partnerships Director Meridith Bruozas. “Since Argonne opened a satellite location on Chicago’s South Side, we have always wanted to do something that unifies South Side STEM engagement,” she said. “This showcase brings together organizations that provide early exposure to STEM that helps set learners up for careers in STEM. Highlighting the great work of these organizations is important, because without these kinds of early-pipeline programs, we will not have enough talent on the hiring end.”
Martin Tuohy, historian and Pullman site manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, emphasized the significance of STEM education at the site, noting that in 1881, the newly constructed Pullman Car Works was the largest industrial complex in the world.
“The men and women who built this place and its world-renowned railroad cars were the Second Industrial Revolution’s inventors and innovators,” said Touhy, who was instrumental in making the site the host for the event. “Even today, new industries and new technologies are being deployed in the Pullman neighborhood by South Side people. It was fitting that Argonne would collaborate with the Pullman State Historic Site for the South Side STEM Showcase.
“Pullman honors the history of our country’s STEM innovation and invention, and the Showcase celebrates the next generation of the STEM workforce,” Tuohy continued. “We hope to make the STEM Showcase an annual event at Pullman to continue that rich tradition, as it was a thrill to see all these young learners gathering here to share their STEM accomplishments.”
Solar-powered shoebox garages, mini robots and wolf populations: A tour of select projects
Students at the ComEd tent had built several battery-powered mini vehicles and shoe-box-size, solar-powered “garages” for charging them (and the students’ phones) — all within the last two weeks of the four-hours-a-day program in partnership with After School Matters, ComEd’s partner of 12 years.
Also at the ComEd tent, Jordan, who was set to start her junior year, demonstrated how to make a pen-size flashlight with an LED light. While she had previously considered a career in nursing, this summer program has expanded her ideas about pursuing other possible STEM careers.
Nearby was Project SYNCERE (Supporting Youth’s Needs with Core Engineering Research Experiments), whose mission is to “prepare the minds of underrepresented students and create pathways for them to pursue careers in STEM.” At Project Syncere’s E-Cademy, students created their own companies that featured a clean-energy product, some using Argonne-provided kits. Among their projects were redesigned solar panels, portable charging stations and headphones.
The Hidden Genius Project tent showcased its computer science program for young black males, which it aims to train and mentor in “technology creation, entrepreneurship and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities.” The students can participate two summers in the program, which is based at Woodlawn High School. They learn how to create their own websites and style the pages, and they also learn coding for gaming.
One student, Ezekiel, demonstrated his site where users can design and order custom electric vehicles. Another student, Eriyonn, demonstrated his website concept that would function as a “matchmaker” between neighborhoods requesting trash pickup events and teams of those performing the cleanups (for pay), with the option to partner with government entities.
At the Paragon Global Initiative Foundation tent, executive director Bill Hoover discussed partnering with the Hope Excel program. Led by Rev. Dr. Shaunte Brewer, Hope Excel worked with kids aged 3 to 13 this summer on coding mini-robots. Hoover, noting that Paragon has led introductions to tech programs, drones and 3D printing in recent years, stated, “It’s important that the kids in the community have this. We need to get the parents involved as well.”
Brewer, an urban farmer interested in sustainability, is a licensed teacher who developed her own curriculum. “I saw a need and asked myself, how can I break this down for young learners?” She added with pride that the program’s elementary students “have taken to robotics and have placed in competitions against high school students” — which is an important age to reach because at fifth grade, “the kids start checking out of school if they’re not engaged.”
At the Teens Take on Climate tent, the students had been tasked with a climate action project and had participated in the Yellowstone Forever Program, which took the whole group to Yellowstone National Park for one week.
One student’s project was titled “Misinfo on Animal Species.” She studied wolf population trends at Yellowstone since they were reintroduced there in 1997. She said that the group’s last day at Yellowstone was “the best day of her life” when she saw a wolf poke its head briefly out of the den they were observing.
See the sidebar for a complete list of organizations participating at the showcase.
Possibilities bloom in Pullman
Argonne’s Jessica Burgess, STEM education partnerships and outreach manager and emcee for the day, emphasized the potential takeaways for the students. “By gathering students from all of these organizations’ summer programs, they can see a bigger picture, meet students with similar interests and see a future for themselves among their STEM peers.”
Having surveyed all of the day’s activities, Argonne’s Brandon Pope, a STEM education outreach coordinator, weighed in with the last word on the day’s events: “I grew up near Pullman Park, so it was cool to be hosting it on ‘home turf’ and connecting these communities to Argonne. The students get to show their peers their projects, which helps validate their interest in STEM activities. The skills they acquire doing this transcend STEM.”
To get involved in South Side STEM outreach efforts, visit Argonne in Chicago’s South Side STEM Opportunity Landscape project webpage.
Organizations at the 2024 South Side STEM Showcase
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.