In 2019, Institute of Child Development (ICD) Professor Melissa Koenig, PhD, doctoral student Annelise Pesch, and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows of ICD launched the Young Scientists outreach program, which aims to educate middle and high school students in developmental psychology and foster their interest in scientific research.

The program pairs ICD developmental psychology PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, and professors with groups of middle and high school students to assist youth and teens in creating their own research projects. Throughout the academic school year (September – May), ICD PhD students and faculty visit participating schools biweekly for 1-hour sessions that focus on research design, data collection, and analysis. ICD post-docs and students also work one-on-one with their mentees to develop a research proposal based on their interests, and support them in defining their hypothesis and executing a study to address their question. At the end of the school year, mentees present their projects to their peers, teachers, and families at a research fair. Mentees will also present their work at the 2021 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Minneapolis. 

“I’ve always had a great deal of respect for children. Their ideas and questions reflect a very deep desire to understand the world and the people in it,” Koenig says. “I launched this program to give children and teenagers some of our tools for asking questions, to create excitement in them about science, and to encourage careers in science.”

Young Scientists currently is partnering with two Twin Cities-area schools: Avalon School and Ascension Catholic School. Avalon School is a project-focused middle and high school in St. Paul. Each student at Avalon has time set aside in their day to work on unique, year-long, individual projects. At Avalon, students interested in developmental psychology work with a team of ICD students in the Young Scientists program to design a unique research project. During the course of the year, the Young Scientists program helps deliver university-quality lessons about social and cognitive psychology, as well as personal guidance and consultation regarding individual student projects.

At Ascension Catholic School, a K-8th grade school in Minneapolis, PhD students and post-doctoral fellows work with groups of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students after school to develop a research proposal related to developmental psychology. At Ascension, students came together in groups to formulate a question and to design a research project that examined that question. Groups of students at Ascension are currently conducting research projects on topics such as working memory, sharing decisions, number cognition, and executive function.

Looking ahead, Koenig and her team hope to expand to other schools in the Twin Cities and are currently accepting inquiries from interested schools. The team has also thought creatively about how to continue to deliver the program during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the upcoming 2020-2021 school year, all Young Scientist programming will be offered fully online, and students, schools, and families will have access to a learning portal complete with resources, learning modules, and more.