BeakerBox

Middle school is a formative time for students to cultivate interests and passions, yet it is also a time that students begin to lose interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The BeakerBox Creative Inquiry team, mentored by Dr. Kara Powder in the Department of Biological Sciences and Katherine Mulholland from the Science Outreach Center, aims to make STEM engaging and accessible for middle schoolers throughout the state of South Carolina.

The overall goal of the BeakerBox project is to develop lesson plans, activities and materials covering a range of topics in science, and package them into boxes to be delivered to middle school classrooms. The team members break up into sub-teams to work efficiently. The curriculum design team works to develop activities based on the standards that must be covered by middle school teachers. While the volunteer team works to assemble and deliver the BeakerBoxes, and assist with outreach events. “One of the biggest appeals of BeakerBox to me was the target of the middle school classroom, because that’s where I fell in love with science,” Courtney Condon, a senior biological sciences major, said.

Thus far, the Creative Inquiry project has created boxes for each grade level that address subjects such as adaptations, mutations, ecosystems and cells. Each box includes both teacher and student lesson plans with three to five hands on activities, and follow up worksheets or other supplemental materials to help students solidify their knowledge of the subject matter.

The activities the team develops for the boxes reinforce the lessons in a fun and interactive way for the students. For example, in the adaptations box, students are tasked with picking up beads and pom poms with either a toothpick or a clothespin. These are supposed to simulate the beaks of different species of birds and how they are adapted for accessing one food source versus another. “It’s not just about the science, it’s about the creativity too and that’s something BeakerBox has allowed me to learn more about,” Milan Lewis-Harris, a sophomore biological sciences major who has worked on both the curriculum design and leadership teams for the project, said.

In order to spread awareness about the BeakerBoxes, the Creative Inquiry team has attended several local events including the Explore Science Homecoming Event, Imagine Upstate STEAM Festival and the Be a Tiger Field Day. These efforts have played a huge role in bringing awareness to BeakerBox and getting them into more classrooms. To date, BeakerBoxes have been distributed to more than 75 classrooms and have reached more than 6,000 middle school students. Feedback from teachers and students has been extremely positive, and the Creative Inquiry team hopes to be able to continue to grow the program’s success and make science fun for students across the state of South Carolina.