NIU’s partnership activities range across all the academic areas, plus career exploration, technology, test preparation and other topics.
In a very popular and innovative program, high school students come to NIU for an intensive anatomy lesson that includes dissection of human cadavers.
Based at NIU, the ICEE brings principles of economics and personal finance in standards-aligned projects to schools throughout Illinois. Home of the famous stock-market game.
A bridge-building competition is sponsored by the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology. Because of the value of hands-on activities that teach engineering concepts and of team-based exercises, the college plans additional competitions in coming years.
Engineering clubs, an extra-curricular activity, exist in six middle schools in Aurora District 129 and Rockford District 205. Funded by the E.E. Carter Foundation and led by NIU faculty, staff, and students, these clubs motivate young people to prepare for college and to consider careers in engineering. A popular summer camp at NIU provides in-depth, hands-on experiences with engineering.
This Saturday program for 48 middle school and high school girls provides hands-on engineering activities and information on engineering careers. Located at NIU Naperville, the program is funded Motorola and led by NIU engineering faculty and NIU student mentors.
Aurora District 129 and Harlem Middle School have joined a new M.S. in Teaching, Emphasis in Engineering Education funded by the Illinois State Board of Education's Math-Science Partnership program.
Project Lead the Way is bringing pre-engineering curriculum to schools in Freeport, Rockford and Elgin as part of a statewide project. The dean of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology serves on the state coordinating committee for Project Lead the Way.
NIU faculty work with teachers and students at Wright Elementary in Malta and in the Rockford schools to integrate fine arts across the curriculum. Music, visual arts, theater and dance help students learn to read and to understand mathematical concepts and processes.
The NIU Community School of the Arts brings many of the most talented teachers in the region together with children, teens, and adults at all levels of ability.
The College of Visual and Performing Arts at NIU sponsors annual competitions in the visual arts, including the regional Scholastic contest, and master classes and contests for a wide variety of musical and theater groups.
Families are encouraged to come early for tricks and treats before 6 p.m. at the Halloween pops concerts by the NIU Philharmonic. Call (815) 753-1546 for information.
Reaching out to Rockford area music teachers, Dr. Edward Klonoski teaches an SRO graduate course in music theory at NIU Rockford. For information, call (815) 753-1450.
Mira Reisenberg, her art education students at NIU, teachers and students at Thayer Hill Middle School in Naperville, and students at a homeless shelter worked together on painting a tent and creating other art projects to raise public awareness about the genocide in Darfur. "My students learned about local and global connections. They learned about service-based learning, doing work that benefits others and connects with the community," Reisberg said. "They're learning about the natural world, depth and radial symmetry, how to paint, how to create value, how to make things look sensational, color theory and that art can make a difference." After local exhibitions, the painted tent was sent to refugee camp children in Darfur as part of an international project.
The College of Visual and Performing Arts has been enriching the lives of junior and senior high school students for more than 25 years at intensive summer camps.
Making history come alive for students requires exciting teaching. American history expert J.D. Bowers is implementing a grant to improve the teaching of history in Rockford and Elgin schools.
Rockford middle school teachers have joined a new M.S. in Teaching, Emphasis in Middle School Mathematics. Taught by NIU faculty, the new degree program is funded by the Illinois State Board of Education's Math-Science Partnership Program. Read about the program in the Chicago Tribune.
Project REAL, a $5 million, federally funded program in Rockford, included the Rockford Environmental and Science Academy (RESA) during 2003-2008. Ongoing, post-grant activities include professional development to continue the upward trend in math performance during Project REAL. Another continuation of Project REAL includes popular career exploration trips provided by Rock Valley College for upper primary and middle school students.
NIU’s STEM Outreach delivers off-campus programs and on-campus activities designed to increase Chicago Tribunescience, technology, engineering, and mathematics literacy and enthusiasm among
P-12 students, their families, and educators. The office provides a central place to find information on the numerous outreach programs offered by NIU’s STEM departments and the colleges.
A spectacular addition to the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Jane is a complete juvenile tyrannosaurus rex. NIU faculty and students are making new scientific discoveries that are becoming part of the dinosaur education programs at the museum.
Each spring NIU’s Department of Physics and its Society of Physics Students sponsor a Saturday of challenging and fun physics competition for high school students. While most of the competitions are tackled in the laboratory, one session is dedicated to a set of three “twisted problems” designed by NIU Physics faculty for each team to work through together. A team of 5 students will have one hour to complete three twisted problems and justify their decisions. A “twisted problem” meets the following requirements:
- Can be solved using basic high school physics concepts without the use of calculus
- May have steps in which students will have to make estimates and justify their numbers
- Involves several “steps” and perhaps several seemingly unrelated concepts
- Requires critical thinking
- Cannot be completed by one student within an hour.
The individual experimental and design challenges vary from year to year. Past challenges have included building a tower from a single sheet of paper, navigating a laser maze, safely packing and mailing a Pringle’s potato chip, and deciphering circuits.
Information is available each January at http://www.outreach.niu.edu/stem/olympics.shtml. Contact Pati Sievert, STEM Outreach Coordinator, at psievert@niu.edu or 815-753-1201.
A group of high school students and teachers spent a week at the QuarkNet center jointly run by NIU and Argonne National Laboratory. Detecting and measuring cosmic rays was part of developing cutting-edge research into high school science curriculum.
NIU’s Frontier Physics program is known far and wide for its traveling road show. In recent years, more than 25,000 K-12 students have learned about physics from these demonstrations and hands-on experiments.
NIU’s physics and chemistry departments turn devilish around Halloween. STEM Outreach takes a traveling laboratory with dozens of hands-on physics experiments on Halloween themes to DeKalb, Dixon, Freeport, Oglesby and Pecatonica. From age 5 on up, children of all ages may participate.
NIU’s STEM Outreach delivers off-campus programs and on-campus activities designed to increase science, technology, engineering, and mathematics literacy and enthusiasm among
P-12 students, their families, and educators. The office provides a central place to find information on the numerous outreach programs offered by NIU’s STEM departments and the colleges.
An after-school reading program for at-risk first and second grade students at Brooks involves 21 NIU students in Communications Disorders, College of Health and Human Sciences. The NIU students are trained to diagnose communications difficulties and implement appropriate interventions that help struggling readers. For information, contact Dr. Sherill Morris at srmorris@niu.edu.
Northern Illinois Region V IJAS Science Fair
Physics Olympics
Science and social science teachers in middle and high schools with large Hispanic enrollments visit important geological sites in Mexico and attend workshops on teaching sciences as part of a five-year National Science Foundation grant. The purpose is to expand culturally relevant and scientifically exciting lessons.
Did it ever rain on Mars?
NIU faculty work with high school students to investigate climate, terrain, and the possibilities for "life" on Mars using data supplied by NASA's instruments on the Red Planet.
Educational psychologists Jennifer Schmidt and M Cecil Smith (College of Education) are studying how children learn science, including how they respond to various teaching techniques. The high-tech project includes recording classes with video cameras and and recording students' responses via pagers. The project is funded by a National Science Foundation grant.
Colleges of Education and Liberal Arts and Sciences are working with special education faculty to develop science curriculum and use technology to reach special needs students in this area.
The College of Education is working with this private school to develop a K-12 science curriculum.
NIU’s STEM Outreach delivers off-campus programs and on-campus activities designed to increase science, technology, engineering, and mathematics literacy and enthusiasm among
P-12 students, their families, and educators. The office provides a central place to find information on the numerous outreach programs offered by NIU’s STEM departments and the colleges.
A grant from the English family allocates computers for disadvantaged youth entering NIU teacher education programs.
The College of Education in collaboration with the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy offers a Certificate of Graduate Study in Problem-Based Learning. The certificate is designed to provide educators with a framework needed for successful implementation of problem-based learning.