Connecting Researchers, Educators, and Students Through Accessible Science

Science Journal for Kids and Teens aims to make scientific research discoveries more accessible to a general audience and particularly to children. Students can have a hard time conceptualizing what scientific researchers do and how they communicate their findings. And many teachers, especially K-12, do not have adequate research backgrounds to make it feasible for them to teach about scientific processes. Science Journal for Kids digitally publishes free, kid-friendly adaptations of peer-reviewed scientific papers. In this talk, I’ll discuss the resources we provide and how they have been shown to improve STEM literacy in classrooms. I’ll give examples of how teachers have used our materials and the beneficial collaborations we’ve had with university and community partners. Finally, I’ll discuss the role that researchers have in actively participating in and supporting outreach endeavors that improve scientific understanding.