Dear ICD Community, 

As the semester comes to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on and share the accomplishments of the Young Scientists program and to extend a sincere thank you to all who helped make this program possible. 

The Young Scientists program was born out of calls from the ICD community to increase outreach and community engagement activities at ICD.  Inspired by the outreach of others, including the team leading the Growing Brains initiative, we sought to develop a new initiative aimed at educating and supporting interested middle school students from underrepresented groups to participate in a student-led curriculum that offered them tools used in developmental science. It was also born out of a partnership with Ascension Catholic Academy, an elementary school engaged in many successful partnerships, who inquired and asked us if we had curricula or workshops to share with their students.  Beginning in the spring and summer of 2019, we developed a curriculum for interested Ascension students in which tools in developmental science were offered by graduate students and postdoctoral mentors, that empowered students to identify as scientists in the process, and offered them an opportunity to present their own scientific work at SRCD2021.

Responsibility for developing these ideas into a full blown curriculum implemented across in-person and online platforms lies with the graduate student and postdoctoral trainees listed below, and the remarkable leadership of Dr. Annelise Pesch!  ICD students’ eagerness to devote their time to community engagement speaks volumes. Not only did our trainees devote significant time and energy into developing and implementing a novel curricular approach to teaching developmental science to 25 students at two partner schools, Avalon Charter School (St. Paul) and Ascension Catholic Academy (Minneapolis), they quickly adapted to COVID-19 and created a website complete with learning modules and activities!  The switch to an online curriculum supported the developmental research of five high school mentees from three different states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Oregon.  The work of these five high school students was supported by small teams of graduate student mentors from ICD  and Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota.  With the thoughtful support of SRCD program chairs, Ellen Pinderhughes and Nim Tottenham, these teams were further supported by five senior faculty mentors from programs across the country. 

The dedication and energy that went into providing our mentees with an engaging and empowering experience is beautifully reflected in the work that students presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development this past April. We encourage you to view the invited session, entitled “Building Pipelines: Engaging Youth in Science,” where each of our 5 mentees presented a poster showcasing their research. During the live Q&A event, mentees discussed their experience with the program, which included feeling valued as scientists, appreciation for the mentorship, and interest in psychology and in research. 

You can search for the session here: https://srcd21biennial.vfairs.com/en/hall#

Our high school mentees will receive a certificate of excellence and stipend, and our graduate mentors will also receive a stipend for their work in this program, thanks to support from a Tri-Psych award and a Ruth Winifred Howard award. We hope to continue building opportunities that connect our ICD community with the future scholars of our generation.   The Young Scientists program far surpassed what we thought possible and we are excited to see what the future holds. 

Thank you to all who made this work possible.

Ascension Catholic School & Avalon Charter School Mentors (2019-20)

Online Young Scientists Mentors (2020-21)

Curriculum and Website Development

Society for Research in Child Development: Collaborators and Faculty Mentors

University of Minnesota Communication and Outreach Support

Melissa Koenig
Professor