The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center Academy (Hillman Academy) has the primary goal of reaching high school students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds and guiding them through a cutting-edge research and professional development experience that positions them for success in STEM. With this focus, the…

The Accelerate Cancer Education (ACE) summer research program at The University of Kansas Cancer Center (KUCC) is a six-week, cancer-focused, summer research experience for high school students from historically marginalized populations in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Cancer affects all populations and continues to be the second leading…

Informal science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs are important tools for broadening participation in STEM careers. The St. Jude STEM Club (SJSC) is a 10-week afterschool STEM club focused on real-world problems in pediatric cancer research and designed for students in the fifth grade. The SJSC is conducted in partnership with…

Since 2017, Jackson State University's (JSU) Minority Advancement through Recruitment and Retention in Science via Outreach Program (MARRS-OP) developed a series of professional development (PD) programs designed for 6th-12th science teachers in under-resourced Mississippi school districts. Due to COVID-19, MARRS-OP's original program design was…

Founded in 2011, the Bay Area Science Festival (BASF), led by the Science and Health Education Partnership (SEP) at UC San Francisco, brings together academic, scientific, corporate and civic groups to develop and lead STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) events for all ages. From 2011-2019, the Festival hosted over 50 events…

STEM pipeline programs often include research experiences for youth, but fewer focus on youth as shared decision-makers or leaders in research efforts. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) and community-based participatory research (CBPR) orientations suggest that the quality and relevance of research will benefit from youth partnership.…

Two-year community college (CC) students face many barriers for recruitment and retention into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields and vertical transfer to 4-year universities (4YUs). Experiential learning, mentoring, and cohort building are effective mechanisms for increasing STEM recruitment and retention, and close…

Climate change is a timely topic and offers an overarching theme that can include a variety of STEM disciplines and technologies. In response to the pandemic, we developed and implemented an online science-based summer youth program in Climate Change Resiliency (CCR) for 11th and 12th graders in July 2020. Two sessions differing in content level…

This paper describes the application of a "biosocial" approach to informal health and science education. As an engagement between biological and critical social sciences, biosocial theory has sought to re-articulate human bodies as fundamentally the product of interrelationships between the biological and social dimensions of human life.…

Parental involvement increases K-12 student interest in STEM careers; however, when parents lack confidence in STEM content, or language and cultural barriers exist, parental engagement decreases. The Teacher Enrichment Initiatives (TEI) collects annual teacher feedback regarding the level of parental involvement with students during science…

As COVID-19 accelerated through spring of 2020 the question became how will schools cope with protracted closure? Devising strategies to engage and educate students through full-time, online learning became a priority. At Tufts CSE we specialize in creating high school biomedical science curricula that foster engagement with science and build…

Translational science is the cornerstone of biomedicine that transfers laboratory and clinical research to the hospital bedside in various forms of therapeutic interventions. This scientific branch influences public health decisions, the economy, and ongoing research endeavors. The purpose of this study was to develop a youth-friendly…