STEM

Yale is committed to making our community a national leader in STEM education, with the goal of increasing the number of students from the greater New Haven area who attend college and complete a degree in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics field. Our strong relationship with our neighbors in local public school districts has created a unique opportunity to build a programmatic model to inspire the next generation of scientists. Each year, Pathways to Science invites local students to more than 150 free programs and events to explore multiple areas of STEM and learn about cutting-edge research from Yale professors and students.

STEM Programs

A Window into Biology
Yale’s Colón-Ramos lab invites Yale Pathways high school students each year to tour their research laboratory and learn how C. elegans (worms!) help us study the brain. Students explore the genetic and microscopy techniques scientists use to understand how brains are built, maintained and control behaviors.

 

Academic Yale College Courses

Qualified New Haven public high school juniors and seniors, who have been selected by their schools, can enroll in Yale academic courses. Tuition is covered for participating students, who are responsible only for the cost of textbooks and other course materials. This program provides an opportunity for high school students to experience a collegiate academic setting and earn credits that may then be transferred to the college of their choice following high school graduation. 

Anatomy Teaching Program at Hill Regional Career High School

Students and faculty from the Yale School of Medicine help teach anatomy and physiology lessons to Hill Regional Career High School students in New Haven. Juniors enrolled in anatomy and physiology courses visit the Yale Medical School Anatomy Lab twice per month. Activities range from learning about anatomy from dissected cadavers, to practicing aspects of physical exams and ultrasounds.

Celentano Biotech, Health, and Medical Magnet School & Bishop Woods Architecture and Design Magnet School Partnerships

Yale’s partnerships with Celentano School and Bishop Woods School are designed to supplement the schools’ efforts in implementing biotech, health, architecture, and design magnet themes.

Chemistry Magic Show

Advances in chemistry have been behind some of the most significant improvements in our quality of life over the last century. Whether it’s medicine, cosmetics, or movie effects, chemistry is everywhere. In this one-hour interactive show, students and their family members are introduced to basic concepts in chemistry through a series of magical demonstrations by experts from the Yale Department of Chemistry.

Code Haven

Code Haven is an undergraduate student organization at Yale University dedicated to introducing students to computer science at a young age. Every week, Yale students teach computing lessons at middle schools in the New Haven district, engaging students with online lessons, group activities, and classroom-wide demonstrations.

Code Haven TEACHTECH

TeachTech is Code Haven’s one-day conference for middle and high school teachers interested in incorporating computer science into their classrooms. Teachers learn about computer science fundamentals, how to demonstrate these concepts to students in an engaging way, and basic software that they can implement in their classrooms to make computer science more appealing to students.

CT SEED

Hosted by Graduate Student Women Engineers, Connecticut Students Exploring Engineering Day (CT SEED) is an introduction to engineering for students from across Connecticut. Middle school students are invited to Yale’s campus for a day of engineering activities and panel discussions on what it’s like to be an engineer. Parents are also invited to join for an information session about supporting their children’s interest in potential STEM careers.

Cushing Center at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

Named in honor of the father of modern neurosurgery, Yale graduate Dr. Harvey Cushing, this exhibit includes more than 450 specimen jars of patients’ brains and tumors, surgical illustrations, personal diaries, photographs of patients & pathology slides, memorabilia and 22 discovery drawers to explore. The Cushing Center offers weekly tours of the collection and is open to the public.

Demos

Yale undergraduate student volunteers teach weekly science classes at local New Haven elementary schools, using engaging demonstrations and hands-on activities. Through these lessons, Demos hopes to expose students to new STEM concepts and build excitement for science.

Design for America

Design for America (DFA) is a national organization with chapters in universities throughout the country. Made up of a diverse group of graduate and undergraduate students, DFA teaches and practices design concepts through hands-on projects that aim to improve the New Haven community. DFA has had a longstanding partnership with Pathways, holding workshops to teach local students skills in human-centered design and engineering.

Design for America - Tinkercad Workshops

Design for America invites Pathways middle school students to learn 3D modeling using Tinkercad. Students participate in design challenges and 3D print their own models, which they can take home at the end of the program.

Design for America - Video Game Design Workshops

Design for America invites Pathways middle school students to discover how to create their own video games. They learn the basics of Flowlab game creator and design-thinking approaches to problem solving, in addition to turning ideas into a functional game that can be published on the Android, Apple, and Amazon app stores.

Design For American and the Latinx Affinity Group Design Thinking

The Yale Latino Networking Group hosts Pathways middle school students and allows them to try their hand at a design challenge with Yale Design for America. Students familiarize themselves with engineering processes focused on user needs to design spaces for superhero characters and build prototypes of these spaces from materials sent to their homes.

Discovery to Cure High School Internship Program

Discovery to Cure exposes students to laboratory research and promotes interest in science and medicine. Rising high school seniors spend six weeks working in a laboratory with a research scientist utilizing research techniques such as gel electrophoresis, RTPCR, and electron microscopy. Since its inception in 2003, more than 260 high school students, undergraduates, and high school teachers have successfully completed the program. Several interns have presented their research work at science fairs and approximately 20% of student interns have published their findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Engineering Explo

At Engineering Explo, GradSWE (Graduate Student Women Engineers) invites Pathways middle school students to discover the marvels of engineering. At this fair-like event, students and families grab a “passport” and explore mechanical, electrical, biomedical, chemical, and environmental engineering through hands-on activities and demonstrations.

Environmental Education Collaborative

Established in April 2019, Environmental Education Collaborative (EECO) is Yale’s first student organization dedicated solely to promoting environmental education in the wider New Haven community. To accomplish this, EECO develops and implements place-based environmental curricula in collaboration with New Haven schools. These typically involve a series of weekly lessons that focus on either a specific environmental issue or a set of topics. EECO is exploring new ways to expose students they work with to its environmental curriculum, such as conducting field trips and implementing nature-based projects in participating schools.

Environmental Film Festival at Yale

Sponsored by the Yale School of the Environment, the Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY) is one of America’s premier student-run environmental film festivals. In addition to highlighting the brightest environmental storytelling of the past year, the festival brings celebrated directors and creatives to campus for workshops and discussions of how we can move forward constructively as environmental storytellers.

EVOLUTIONS

The Yale Peabody EVOLUTIONS Program (EVOking Learning and Understanding Through Investigations of the Natural Sciences) engages high-school students in informal learning and work opportunities throughout all four years of high school. Through weekly classes, monthly events, and field trips, EVOLUTIONS is designed to increase science literacy, provide college preparation, develop career awareness, and promote transferable skill development. Each year, EVOLUTIONS students produce an exhibition that is installed in the museum and work as science interpreters through the SciCORPS youth employment program—a select group of EVOLUTIONS students are also offered paid internships in Yale science laboratories.

Exercise, Metabolism & Cancer (Rachel Perry's lab group)

Yale Pathways high school students join endocrinologists at Yale’s Perry Lab to learn about the connection between exercise, metabolism, and cancer. During the lab tour, they observe and ask questions about how mice, mini-treadmills, and tracer infusions are used to better understand metabolic, inflammatory, and tumor biology in animals and people.

Exploring Science

Exploring Science is an online discussion series organized by Open Labs at Yale where scientists talk about the subjects they love. Aimed at middle school students, Exploring Science invites scientists from all parts of Yale to present their work, or their pathways into science, in an engaging way to an audience of enthusiastic students. Students are encouraged to respond to the speaker as well as ask their own questions in the chat throughout the event. 

FIRST Robotics: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science Technology

Hill Regional Career and Acievement First Amistad High School students—assisted by local companies, Yale students, and volunteers—design, assemble, and test a robot capable of performing a specified task in competition with other teams. The program demonstrates to students the fun and competitive spirit that can exist in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Flipped Science Fair

The Flipped Science Fair, hosted by Open Labs at Yale, flips the traditional science fair format on its head: middle school student judges evaluate graduate students and post docs presenting their current research. Middle school students learn about cutting-edge research from real Yale scientists in a small group setting, with plenty of opportunities to ask questions and participate in hands-on demonstrations. The presenters learn how to tailor their research pitch to a general audience, with emphasis on keeping talks exciting, understandable, and relevant.

Girls' Science Investigations

Girls’ Science Investigations (GSI) is a program that empowers girls in science by giving them both guidance and hands-on experience. On four Saturdays throughout the year, GSI runs theme-based programs for middle school girls to encourage them to pursue careers in science. Recent program themes have included “The World of Light” and “The Electromagnetic World.” Yale University professors and students teach the programs, conduct demonstrations, and lead the girls in activities in laboratory environments.

Graduate Student Women Engineers

GradSWE at Yale is part of the Society of Women Engineers, an international organization committed to promoting women in engineering. Together with Pathways to Science, GradSWE runs numerous Engineering Days for middle and high school students throughout the year. The goal of Engineering Day is to show attendees that learning a new skill to a level that lets them build a real robot or conduct a true scientific experiment does not need to be intimidating. Past projects include programming a self-watering garden and building an air-quality monitor.

Graduate Student Women Engineers Ask a Scientist

In Ask a Scientist, engineering researchers from Yale and elsewhere answer science questions for students in a weekly webinar. Hosted by the Yale Graduate Student Women Engineers, the program explores different areas of science, including environmental engineering, biomedical engineering and physics. Topics vary from frogs to poison to dark matter. 

Green Careers, Women Leaders

Green Careers, Women Leaders is an annual day long conference for high school girls hosted by graduate students at the Yale School of the Environment. Students have the chance to interact with entrepreneurs and leaders from the fields of renewable energy, clean water, sustainable food, health and wellness, urban planning, ecology, environmental justice, and architecture. Individual sessions during the day include an exercise in environmental writing and discussions about green architecture and environmental justice.

GUMI College Life Panel

The Yale Graduate-Undergraduate Mentorship Initiative (GUMI) organizes events for high school studnets offering support and advice for educational planning. At the group’s annual College Life Panel, both undergraduate and graduate students share their experiences, obstacles, and successes in applying to and transitioning to college.

GUMI NASA Event

The Yale Graduate-Undergraduate Mentorship Initiative (GUMI) organizes events for high school studnets offering support and advice for educational planning. The group’s annual NASA event highlights various NASA-affiliated scientists, researchers, and students and seeks to advise high school students on how to pursue a career in space research. GUMI covers how students can get involved in NASA research in high school, college, and beyond.

Health Professionals Recruitment and Exposure Program

Health Professionals Recruitment and Exposure Program (HPREP) is a pipeline program through the Student National Medical Association and Latino Medical Student Association at Yale. HPREP aims to provide high school students with the skills and resources to succeed in the college-application process by providing instructional classroom sessions, workshops, and one-on-one meetings. By the end of the program, each student will have drafted and edited their first college essay and completed a health-related research project and oral presentation.

Hill Regional Career High School Partnership

The Yale partnership with Hill Regional Career High School provides students access to Yale classes, laboratories, and structured internships. In addition to the Anatomy Teaching Program, the Yale Simulation Academy invites students to the state-of-the-art Center for Medical Simulation to practice hands-on medical treatments.

Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage

Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (IPCH) is a research collaborative dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of material culture. IPCH has offered tours of their conservation space and hands-on demonstrations at on-campus science events through Yale Pathways to Science. Each year, IPCH staff offer a Chemistry on Canvas summer workshop series to Pathways high school students.

Julia Robinson Math Festival

The Julia Robinson Math Festival inspires students to explore the richness and beauty of mathematics through activities that encourage collaborative and creative problem-solving. At the festival, students choose from more than a dozen tables where volunteers, who come from various disciplines at Yale but are all lovers of mathematics, guide students through a set of intriguing math problems and puzzles, supporting students as they work together.

Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium

The Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium is a facility of the Yale Department of Astronomy. The planetarium is used to teach astronomy concepts to undergraduate classes, to support astronomy programs at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and to present planetarium shows to the general public. The planetarium and observatory are open to the public every Tuesday night. 

Marsh Botanical Garden

Sitting on eight acres, with impressive diversity of plant collections in six greenhouses and outdoor gardens, Marsh Botanical Garden (MBG) offers support for researchers, faculty, and students at Yale, as well as an informative and inspirational experience for visitors. MBG also hosts educational tours of collections and the monthly “Green Café.”

Math Mornings

Math Mornings is a series of lectures and demonstrations aimed at bringing the joy and variety of mathematics to students and their families. Speakers from Yale and elsewhere talk about aspects of mathematics that they find fascinating or useful. Students and families are invited to play math games and then attend engaging talks about mathematical concepts.

MATHCOUNTS

MATHCOUNTS is a national middle school enrichment program. MATHCOUNTS outreach at Yale brings programming to local students in New Haven, West Haven, and Hamden schools by having Yale students lead weekly after-school sessions. Yale coaches use applied and creative problems to inspire students to see math as an exciting and ever-present part of the world, to reinforce the topics that they are learning in school, and to prepare students for a district-wide competition held eachspring.

Medical Mornings

Medical Mornings is a lecture series hosted by the Yale School of Medicine Diversity Committee. Each event is designed for families and involves a lecture by a Yale medical school professor and hands-on health-related demonstrations by Yale medical students and organizations. Hands-on demonstrations include healthy and unhealthy pig lung specimens, blood pressure kits, and more.

Medical Specialty Exposure Pipeline

Launched in 2021, the Medical Specialty Exposure Program (MSEP) is a pipeline program that aims to empower URiM (underrepresented in medicine) high school students to choose career paths in medicine. Resident physicians of diverse backgrounds in pediatrics, internal medicine, OB-GYN, psychiatry, and surgery specialties lead monthly case-based sessions geared toward exposing students to each field, developing clinical reasoning skills, and providing them with interactive learning and networking opportunities.

MedSci

MedSci is an undergraduate organization that educates New Haven students about interesting and useful health skills and knowledge, on subjects ranging from vaccines to nutrition to allergies. MedSci introduces elementary school students to higher-level biological concepts through engaging lessons that connect health topics to relevant and grade-appropriate experiences and knowledge. 

Neurology Internships in the Serena Spudich Lab

New Haven high school students join Dr. Serena Spudich’s lab in Yale’s Department of Neurology for a six-week deep dive into their neuro-investigations through their work with the International NeuroHIV Cure Consortium (INHCC). Students learn from a wide array of professionals while contributing to ongoing studies. In a virtual component, alongside other interns from around the country, students connect and work with HIV-focused basic, translational, and clinical research global leaders. They are exposed to neuroimaging, genomics, neuropsychology, and biostatistics/data visualization. Students also gain academic and professional insight on future directions in medical research and career planning.

New Haven Science Fair

The annual New Haven Science Fair offers mentoring for students and professional development for teachers on investigative hands-on science-fair projects that promote scientific skills and research communication. More than 8,000 New Haven students and 43 schools participate annually, utilizing more than 160 volunteers for mentoring and judging. Yale community members make up over 80 percent of the judges and mentors in the program.

NEWT Café

The Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment Center (NEWT) is a multi-university collaboration that aims to make the production of clean water more sustainable and cost effective. Yale graduate students involved with the center host an annual event that brings Pathways students to campus to learn how scientists utilize nanotechnology to enhance water-treatment methods. Through demonstrations and short talks, Pathways students learn how these issues are related to their daily lives.

Pathways Bones, Biology, and Behavior: Understanding Human Osteology

During this event for Pathways students, bones take center stage. Students are introduced to the science behind human evolution and forensic anthropology through a series of hands-on exploratory demonstrations with real human bones and fossil casts. Students learn the structure and function of the human skeleton and how markers of injury can be diagnosed and used for research or criminal investigations.

Pathways Brain Education Day

Brain Education Day is an annual neuroscience event for for 100 students in Yale Pathways to Science. Students explore the brain with Yale’s top neuroscientists through speciman dissection, visits to the mock fMRI scanner, tours of the Yale Cushing Center, learning how the brain uses electricity to send signals, and controlling a robotic claw using electrical activity produced by their own muscles.

Pathways Day of Immunology

Day of Immunology is an annual event for 80 high school students hosted by Yale’s Department of Immunobiology in collaboration with Pathways to Science. Through interactive workshops, students are introduced to exciting facets of immunology, including allergy, infection, the microbiome, and vaccines. Throughout these activities and lab tours, students also learn about local opportunities to get involved in immunology research and about diverse careers in the biomedical sciences.

Pathways Discover Chemistry Day

At Discover Chemistry Day, Pathways high school students take part in hands-on chemistry experiments that encourage inquiry, examination, and exploration. Students can work with a gas chromatographer, separate caffeine from tea, engage in simulations of receptor-binding molecules that give rise to our sense of smell, and much more. This event is hosted by graduate students in the Yale Department of Chemistry.

Pathways DIY Microscope Build

At this event, Pathways students work with Yale graduate students in biology to build their own DIY microscopes. Together Pathways and graduate students use the microscopes to explore cells, crystals, and everyday materials that students bring from home. After the event, students are able to keep the microscopes to continue the exploration at home.

Pathways Engineering Days

Hosted by GradSWE, Engineering Days bring middle and high school students in Yale Pathways to Science to tour laboratories and try their hands at an engineering design-build. Past Engineering Days have included building an air-quality monitor, a bionic arm, and a self-watering garden.

Pathways Environmental Science Café

The Environmental Science Café brings Pathways high school students to listen to short talks about new and exciting work at the Yale School of the Environment. Graduate students also provide hands-on workshops related to the café talks. Previous topics include how scientists use X-rays to study plant evolution, how to 3D print a flower, and how drones are used in forest management. Students are also invited to attend the annual Yale School of the Environment Research Day.

Pathways Exploring the Intersection of Physics, Engineering, & Biology

An event for Pathways middle school students, Exploring the Intersection of Physics, Engineering & Biology allows students to interact with Yale scientists working at the intersection of these fields. Through hands-on activities and demonstrations, Pathways students learn how to build a balloon-powered car and watch demonstrations such as “Fluorescence: Glowing in Science” and “Viewing the Nanoscopic World.”

Pathways Exploring the Yale Farm

At this annual event, Pathways middle school students are invited to explore Yale’s beautiful urban farm. Students learn the science of farming, the importance of sustainability, and urban horticulture techniques.

Pathways Exploring Yale’s Marsh Botanical Gardens and Greenhouses: World Plant Diversity and Evolution

At this annual event, Pathways students are invited to explore Yale’s incredible Marsh Botanical Gardens and Greenhouses to discover the importance of plants to life on earth. Students learn about plant diversity and evolution through hands-on science activities and close examination of diverse florae, including a vast array of carnivorous and desert plants.

Pathways Ophthalmology Day

Aimed at increasing interest in ophthalmology, Pathways students are invited for a full day of learning about the eye. Students use software to “travel” into the eye, are trained on slit lamp machines, and try their hands at cow-eye dissection. This annual event is hosted by the Yale Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science.

Pathways Play Cafés

Hosted by the Yale Center for Health & Learning Games and the play2PREVENT Lab, Pathways middle and high school students are invited to explore how video games can be used to change the way people think and act. Students learn how games are created, why they are important, and how doctors, mathematicians, and scientists use them for their jobs. Students also play games created by the play2PREVENT lab.

Pathways Public Health Day

At Public Health Day, Pathways scholars are invited to explore the diversity and interdisciplinary nature of public health applications through interactive workshops, hands-on demonstrations, and discussions. Participants learn about cutting-edge research happening at the Yale School of Public Health and have lunch with current graduate students.

Pathways Reproductive Physiology Day

At this event, Pathways high school students are invited to discover the science of reproduction with Yale Medical School faculty. Students use microscopes to identify different cells of the reproductive tract, as well as learn the differences between human and other mammalian reproduction.

Pathways Summer Scholars Program

The Pathways Summer Scholars program brings 100 high school students from New Haven, West Haven, and Orange public schools to study science for two weeks on Yale’s campus. Summer Scholars provides an intensive, hands-on science curriculum that emphasizes discovery, critical thinking, and problem solving. Rising seniors have the opportunity to live on campus during the program and engage in a variety of college-prep enrichment activities. The curriculum is designed by Yale University faculty, graduate and professional students, as well as teachers from local public schools. Yale students serve a vital role as teaching assistants and mentors.

Pathways to Science

With an overarching goal of encouraging and supporting promising young scholars to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, Yale Pathways to Science opens the door for middle and high school students to explore STEM at Yale University. The more than 1,900 Pathways students are considered the youngest members of Yale’s scientific community and are invited to more than 130 special events, academic lectures, demonstrations, hands-on activities, summer programs, and research opportunities throughout the year.

Pathways to Science Festival @ West Campus

Pathways middle and high school students are invited to this annual festival at Yale’s West Campus for a full day of lectures, hands-on demonstrations, student panels, science exploration games, and tours of the state-of-the-art West Campus facilities, under the guidance of more than 50 Yale scientists and students. Past themes for the festival include “Colors & Dyes” and “The Science of Energy.”

Pathways Wright Laboratory Tour

Pathways students get a behind-the-scenes look at the Yale Wright Laboratory and undertake hands-on activities that reveal how Wright Lab researchers can make the invisible visible. Wright Lab is transforming our understanding of the universe by exploring fundamental questions about the physical world through a broad research program in nuclear, particle, and astrophysics; inspiring and preparing a diverse group of future scientists; and promoting the value of science in society. Wright Lab researchers explore the frontiers of science, investigating dark matter, neutrinos, how matter is made and interacts, quantum phenomena, the beginnings of the universe, and more.

Physics of...Series

The Yale Society of Physics partners with other Yale organizations to teach and excite high school students about the physics of many everyday phenomena, such as juggling, dance, art, fire, and common electronics. Students apply math and science principles to better understand how physics can be applied in the real world.

Play2PREVENT Lab - ForAGirl Program

Using an innovative videogames research program as a platform, the ForAGirl program provides training and mentorship to summer-program participants in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); medicine; and research. The program, which is open to both girls and boys, focuses on promoting girls’ engagement in these areas. Scholars learn about research, serious and commercial game development, game intervention design and evaluation methods, data collection and analysis, and community engagement. Scholars also learn first hand how games can be used for purposes other than entertainment and add to their broader understanding of how innovations in the STEM fields affect our lives.

Resonance

Resonance is an annual event hosted by Synapse, the official outreach team of Yale Scientific Magazine, that brings high school students to Yale’s campus for a day of hands-on demonstrations, presentations by Yale professors, and tours of Yale’s science facilities. Breaking away from traditional scientific teaching, Resonance presents science in a way that is applicable to students’ daily lives and future goals.

Sci.CORPS

Sci.CORPS (Science Career Orientation & Readiness Program for Students) is a program open to students who have participated in the Yale Peabody EVOLUTIONS program for at least two years. After a period of training and community service, participants receive paid work experience as science interpreters at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. While the museum is closed, these youth staff will work as outreach educators and provide online learning. In the 2019–2020 academic year, Sci.CORPS staff provided nearly 4,000 hours of educational experiences to Peabody Museum visitors.

Science Café

Open Labs at Yale hosts an event called Science Café, where students get to learn about exciting new research at Yale from the scientists doing the work. Students also learn how the scientists got into their field and what they are passionate about in their work. Presenters give a short, engaging talk about their research, and students get to meet scientists from all over campus in Q&A and interactive demonstrations. Open Labs also works with local community groups to host events where students get hands-on experience with interactive science demonstrations.

Science Haven

Science Haven is a collaboration between Open Labs at Yale and New Haven neighborhood leaders that is designed to engage Yale graduate students more deeply in their neighborhoods through hands-on science demos at community gatherings. Through attending neighborhood leadership meetings and connecting with families, Science Haven aims to inspire students to pursue a career in science and to help adults to see scientists as approachable. By putting a face to the lab coat, Science Haven hopes to foster a sense of trust between residents and their neighborhood scientific community.

Science in the News

Science in the News is a series of fun science lectures delivered by Yale graduate and professional students and postdoctoral scholars each spring. Past lecture topics have included “How to Build an Earth: Just Add Water!” and “Life is Strange: Legendary Heroes of Survival.” The series is organized and hosted by Yale Science Communication—A Graduate Student Organization, a campus group devoted to igniting scientific engagement and training effective science communicators. 

Science on Saturdays

This award-winning lecture series features scientists whose passion for their work inspires us all. Each event involves a lecture by a Yale professor and engaging science demonstrations by Yale college students. Science on Saturdays provides an opportunity for Yale scientists and residents of New Haven and beyond to come together over a shared sense of wonder. Past topics have included “How to Grow a New Head: The Secret of Eternal Life” and “Peering into the Dark Side of the Universe.”

SpinWearables

The student volunteers at SpinWearables, a project of the Society of Women Engineers at Yale, help students code their own light-up device called the SpinWheel! Students dive deeper into coding with Arduino and learn the physics behind motion and how our eyes see color. These sessions feature small-group workshops and culminate in a Final Masterpiece Project where students design their own creations via their SpinWheels.

Splash at Yale

Splash at Yale is a biannual event that brings local middle and high school students to Yale University for one day of unlimited learning. Students take classes in a variety of subjects taught by Yale undergraduate and graduate students. Students get to learn about things that they normally would not have access to, empowering them to find what they love to learn, discover new career opportunities, and become tomorrow’s leaders. Splash at Yale also hosts Sprout, a similar program that gives students the opportunity to delve deeper into one topic in a series of three workshops.

Stem Mentors

STEM Mentors is a graduate student organization that serves to prepare and encourage young students to pursue STEM in college and in their careers. STEM Mentors organizes college-essay-writing workshops, college Q&A sessions, and career fairs to help expose students to the exciting world of STEM.

Ulysses S. Grant Program

The Ulysses S. Grant Program is a six-week academic summer program for motivated middle school students from New Haven Public Schools held on the Yale University campus. Since 1953, U.S. Grant has drawn upon the enthusiasm of Yale undergraduates to deepen students’ current interests and explore completely new ones, while developing their critical thinking and collaborative skills.

Urban Resources Initiative

Urban Resources Initiative (URI) is a university not-for-profit partnership actively engaged in community forestry activities throughout New Haven. Its mission is to foster community-based land stewardship, promote environmental education, advance the practice of urban forestry, and provide Yale students with clinical learning opportunities. URI is dedicated to community participation in urban ecosystem management.

Visualizing Animal Embryos Using Your Own DIY Microscope

During this virtual science workshop, students build their very own microscope from scratch. They then use their self-built microscopes to visualize the first steps of development in animals like frogs to see how a single cell transforms into an adult organism through the process of embryonic development.

Yale Center for Analytical Sciences

YCAS Young Scholars is an intensive, two-week summer program geared to promising high school juniors and seniors interested in math and science. Students are introduced to biostatistics and statistical computing using the R programming language and to research methods used in medical science. Students work in teams, using real health-science data, to address study questions and develop a final presentation of their work.

Yale Farm & Yale Sustainable Food Project

The Yale Farm is a lush and productive teaching farm that produces vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers, as well as providing a home to free-ranging chicken flocks and honey bees. It provides a place where the community can come together to learn about the agriculture and the complex systems that feed us. The farm hosts workshops, seminars, open workdays, and a program for New Haven public school second graders.

Yale Funbotics At-Home Engineering Challenges

Yale Funbotics conducts at-home engineering camps. Kids receive custom kits in the mail, containing materials that will be used throughout six session camps during which students learn core engineering skills, critical thinking, and design principles while having fun in the comfort of their homes. Throughout the sessions kids explore engineering design by building structures from popsicle stick bridges to race cars. For the final session, kids are encouraged to use their resourcefulness to gather everyday materials to build an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, instilling the idea that engineering can occur anywhere.

Yale Landscape Lab

The Yale Landscape Lab, located at Yale’s West Campus in Orange, Connecticut, fosters growing collaborations across Yale and beyond, connecting more than 20 professional schools, departments, organizations, and student groups across the university. Partners include the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Architecture, and Public Health, as well as Yale College. Numerous student groups utilize the Landscape Lab as a place to put their ideas into action.

Yale Latino Network Group STEM Workshop

The Yale Latino Network Group (YLNG) seeks to strengthen the professional and social relationships between Latino employees, the university, and the outside community. Each year, the group invites Pathways middle school students to explore science and engineering with its members during a day of hands-on workshops. The most recent event included a virtual design-thinking workshop, where students built prototypes of superhero beds with craft supplies mailed to their homes. The Design for America student organization led the workshop with assistance from YLNG and Pathways volunteers.

Yale Online

Yale Online brings access to professors, programs and courses to a range of people around the world, including career changers, lifelong learners, educators, and high school and college students. From online courses to on-campus experiences, there are a range of learning opportunities available for degree and non-degree seekers. The courses are free and open to the public.

Yale Pathways Research Internships

The Yale Pathways Research Internships (YPRI) connects highly qualified Yale Pathways students with science research internships at Yale. During the summer, students participate in a series of workshops and activities that supplement their internship experiences and enhance their scientific research skills. Students are paired with Yale undergraduate mentors, who provide one-on-one-one guidance throughout the six-week internship experience.

Yale Peabody Museum Annual Events

Each year, the Yale Peabody Museum hosts several public events for the community, most notably the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Legacy of Environmental and Social Justice event in January and ¡Fiesta Latina! in October. Though these programs will evolve with the museum’s renovation, both events will continue to be free and open to the public. The Peabody Museum also sponsors numerous lectures and talks throughout the year.

Yale Peabody Museum Education Programs for K-12 School Groups

Each year, the Yale Peabody Museum provides earth- and life-science programs to more than 20,000 students from Connecticut and surrounding states. During the museum’s renovation, school and group programs will continue to be offered online and at the Peabody’s Community Education Center located at Yale’s West Campus in Orange, Connecticut. The West Campus Education Center features over 3,000 square feet of classroom, presentation, and activity space, and an extensive network of on-campus nature trails for hands-on life science programs. School programs are free for New Haven, West Haven, and Orange public schools from September through March.

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History houses a diverse collection of 13 million objects that includes Egyptian mummies, samurai swords, and animals and plants from across the world. The museum’s paleontological collections rank among the most historically important fossil collections in the world. The Peabody also offers an increasing number of online programs and activities for all ages, and their online catalog houses digital images of more than 163,000 specimens, artifacts, and objects.

Yale Physics Olympics

The Yale Physics Olympics (YPO) is an all-day physics competition for Connecticut and surrounding area high school students and teachers and is free for registered teams. YPO  brings more than 100 high school students to compete in teams on a variety of physics-related tasks that get students to practice the skills of experimental physicists. Awards are given to the three best-performing teams.

Yale School of Medicine Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program

Yale’s Interdepartmental Neuroscience Outreach Program welcomes middle and high school student groups to Yale. Students explore neuroscience on campus through lectures, hands-on demonstrations, and a tour of the Cushing Center, all led by current graduate students. At interactive demo stations, students can use their muscles to power a robotic claw, record electrical changes in neurons from a cockroach leg, compare brains from several animals, and learn how common brain teasers work. In the Cushing Center, volunteers partner with a talented librarian to lead students on a scavenger hunt to learn about the history of neuroscience at Yale and see a variety of brain specimens collected by Dr. Harvey Cushing.

Yale School of the Environment Research Day

Research Day is an annual spring conference that gives master’s and Ph.D. students at the Yale School of the Environment a chance to present their research to the community. During this daylong conference, students present with poster sessions and oral presentations. The conference features a prominent scientist keynote presentation. The event uses multiple formats including the UpGoer5 session that restricts presenters to describe their research using only the 1,000 most common words in the English language. Ten Pathways high school students are invited as the youngest members of the conference.

Yale Science Olympiad

Working with state directors, regional coordinators, the university, teachers, and countless Yale students, the Yale Science Olympiad put together the nation’s first college student–run tournament in January 2014 and continues to host an invitational every year. Students compete at a regional level and challenge themselves to gain valuable skills in STEM.

Yale Simulation Academy

The Yale Simulation Academy (YSA) is a procedure-based anatomy and physiology curriculum spanning the school year. Students from Hill Regional Career High School and Metropolitan Business Academy come to the Yale Center for Medical Simulation (YCMS) one day a week to work with physicians and faculty at the Yale School of Medicine. The program employs active engagement as the vehicle by which students learn to apply concepts in biology, math, physics, and chemistry through advanced medical procedures. YSA exposes students to the varied careers within the biomedical sciences, promotes peer mentorship, and supports those interested in higher education.

Yale Social Robotics Lab Open House

The Yale Social Robotics Lab focuses on building models of human social behavior, especially the development of early social skills. Scientists in the lab use computational modeling and interactive robots to explore questions about social development that are difficult or impossible to investigate with other disciplines. Each year, the lab hosts an open house for families and students of all ages. Guests tour the lab, see live robot demonstrations, learn about past and current projects, and have an opportunity to chat with lab members about their research.

Yale Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science

The Yale Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) chapter is dedicated to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for all in STEM. A large component of this work includes science outreach to K–12 students within the New Haven area. This exciting event started in-person in the first year but transitioned to virtual for the last two years. SACNAS directly brought science demonstrations to students’ homes and taught them core scientific concepts.

Yale Synapse

Synapse is the educational outreach arm of Yale Scientific Magazine. It aims to inspire New Haven public school students to pursue careers in science, engage in research, and try their hands at scientific journalism. Synapse conducts science demonstrations over the course of three spring workshops and the annual Resonance program, a series of science enrichment activities hosted at Yale for high school students. Synapse also sends out a monthly newsletter with science news and puzzles and organizes a scientific writing contest in the Fall.

Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association Outreach Events

The Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association (YUAA) is Yale’s largest engineering club, and they build rockets, birdlike planes, satellites, and cool robots/rovers. Through their outreach, YUAA usually build small-scale versions of these items, such as small rockets, model airplanes, or model rovers. They then also explain the basic science governing these projects and how they work.

Yale West Campus Showcase

At Yale’s West Campus, science is taking place in gardens, galleries, microscope rooms, and laser labs, and the showcase allows it to be shared with students. This event welcomes students in grades 6–12 for a behind-the-scenes virtual tour of Yale labs, including live experiments and a chance to have their questions answered by Yale scientists.