Access to quality chemistry education benefits the world as a whole. Engaging new students with science can help us get a head start on addressing issues that arise in the future. On this page, we share a few highlights of the work our department does to engage the community, from summer camps for children to open-access lecture videos.
The annual Juntos Chemistry Overnight Camp is organized by chemistry professor Chong Fang, an annual event designed to introduce Latino high school students to STEM, particularly chemistry, while providing a sampling of college life at Oregon State University.
Family Science and Engineering Nights (FSENs) are held in local elementary schools within a 45-minute drive of Oregon State University. FSENs are offered on certain Thursday nights throughout the University term from 6:30PM - 8:00PM. OSU students and faculty bring hands-on science and engineering activities for a fun family event!
A new program led by chemistry professor Marilyn Mackiewicz, this week-long workshop is designed to help students discover the wonders of designing nanomaterials that can be used to solve global biomedical, environmental, and energy challenges. In addition, students gain skills in professional development, self-advocacy and identity, and career pathways for chemistry students.
Our Saturday Academies are not just on Saturdays! The program is designed to engage all motivated young people from grades 2 through 12, including those from underrepresented communities, in hands-on, in-depth learning by connecting them to community experts as educators and mentors. All pre-college students can interact with experts and experience professional environments in ways that help them develop intellectually and prepare them for rewarding careers.
"The workshops and the stories that the mentors told us were the most valuable thing because it helped us relate to their experiences. This made me feel more confident because if they could do it, then I could do it too."
Participant in the Ignite InSTEM workshop
We are dedicated to improving and expanding chemistry education across Oregon and beyond, and hope to offer a materials that can assist teachers and instructors in bringing chemistry into their classrooms. Demonstrations may be the best way to make chemistry come alive. We agree that live demos are best, and we offer here a large number of videos showing our live demos performed in chemistry classes at OSU.
Learn what life is like for our undergraduate students! Research is a major part of the mission in our department, and at OSU. Explore some of our research projects through the lens of our students. Listen to personal interviews where they discuss how they found a research interest and mentor, the projects they worked on, and their successes and challenges.
