Students 2 Science

Students 2 Science Opens at NPS Central Office! Eagle Academy Student, Maurice Minott, is Named First Intern

U.S. Senator Cory Booker And Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Unveil Students 2 Science’s New State-Of-The-Art STEM Education Laboratory In The Heart Of Newark

S2S, Newark Public Schools and the City of Newark Partner to Bring 21st Century STEM Education to Newark’s 5-12 Students

[Newark, NJ | May 7, 2018 | PRNewswire] New Jersey’s and Newark’s top elected officials gathered today with representatives from Students 2 Science (S2S), Newark Public Schools and the City of Newark to celebrate the opening of the new S2S Newark Technology Center in downtown Newark at 765 Broad Street.

S2S Newark Technology Center marks the newest chapter of Newark’s revitalization and its commitment to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education. Joining S2S co-founder and president Paul Winslowwere U.S. Senator, the Honorable Cory Booker; Mayor of Newark, the Honorable Ras Baraka; and, Newark Public Schools Interim Superintendent Robert Gregory.

During the opening ceremony, Tom Gebhardt, Chairman and CEO of Panasonic Corporation of North America, awarded a $1.5 million grant to support the S2S Newark Technology Center.

“Today, we are thrilled to announce with our partners – Newark Public Schools and the City of Newark – that with the new S2S Newark Technology Center, we are bringing comprehensive, 21st century STEM education to students in the district with our program aimed at inspiring, motivating, and educating them to pursue global careers in STEM,” said Winslow, retired Ph.D. chemist and co-founder of Students 2 Science, including its first lab in East Hanover and the Newark center.

“We are also enormously grateful to Panasonic for the generous support, as well as to our other longtime supporters that have helped us reach our goals including PSEG and Thermo Fisher Scientific.”

The S2S Newark Technology Center is a 10,000 square foot, authentic, commercial-grade laboratory which will be outfitted with $4 million of state-of-the-art instrumentation. It features six working analytical laboratories and two virtual laboratory (V-Lab) studios each equipped with a hybrid communications platform. S2S Newark seeks to close the gap in STEM education by offering experiential STEM learning to all Newark 5-12 students through its three signature programs – ISAAC, V-Labs and teacher professional development.

ISAAC, which stands for Improving Students Affinity and Aptitude for Careers in STEM, provides middle and high school students with on-site, real-world STEM instruction led by volunteer professional scientists. The S2S program is expected to reach more than 32,000 Newark students and their parents beginning as early as 2019.

At S2S Newark, students work side-by-side with volunteer professional scientists using modern instrumentation to investigate critical world issues, such as the impact of global overpopulation on food scarcity, water pollution, pandemics, and more. These real-world investigations are grounded in Newark’s curriculum and the “Next Generation Science Standards” — rigorous science standards adopted by the state — and represent some of the most vital issues facing today’s youth.

“As a longtime resident of Newark, I welcome Students 2 Science with open arms,” said Senator Booker. “Through its exemplary curriculum, instructors, and mentors, Students 2 Science is preparing all Newark students with the skills and workforce experiences they need in order to fully participate in cutting-edge STEM careers. From biotechnology and life sciences to engineering and information technology, this program is helping prepare our students for jobs of the 21st Century.”

In addition to the ISAAC program’s on-site instruction, S2S Newark also offers its V-labs, where students do hands-on, project-based learning with professional scientists right at their desks. This remote, virtual instruction broadens S2S’s reach by eliminating geographic barriers and language constraints through Connectivity, a sophisticated proprietary communications platform available in 200 spoken languages with interpreters on demand, bringing S2S’s offerings to global capacity.

“Newark is on the rise and S2S stands at the forefront of its renewal when it comes to nurturing its future STEM education success,” said Mayor Ras Baraka. “S2S Newark is an innovative, collaborative project that shows just what can be accomplished when the public and private sectors come together for the sake of our students.”

Teachers are also a focus of the S2S Newark Technology center. It will provide professional development and technical assistance for teachers in STEM. Both in-lab and in-class instruction include mentoring, teacher support, and rigorous science education compatible with the Next Generation Science Standards and career pathways for 21st century jobs.

“At Newark Public Schools, our partnership with S2S and the City of Newark on the S2S Newark Technology Center underscores the high priority we place on STEM education for our students,” said Robert Gregory, NPS Superintendent. “It is vital that we educate our students with high-quality instruction that promotes critical and complex thinking, while also providing our teachers with the innovative and meaningful professional development they need to deliver this critical STEM content.”

Corporate Sponsors on Students 2 Science
S2S success lies in its close collaboration with the corporate partners, many of whom provide volunteer scientists and mentors to S2S programming and ongoing support. Here is what some have to say:

David Daly, President and Chief Operating Officer, PSEG
“PSEG believes mentors are essential to student success as role models who inspire, motivate and educate them on their path to a 21st century STEM career. Our investment in the S2S Newark Technology Center is an investment in the future of students and the community, at large.”

Tom Gebhardt, Chairman and CEO, Panasonic Corporation of North America
“Panasonic sees today’s STEM students as our future innovators. We applaud the goals and work of the S2S Newark Technology Center teaching and inspiring the students in our community, by providing game-changing technology and all the tools they need to succeed.”

Dan Shine, Senior Vice President, Analytical Instruments, Thermo Fisher Scientific
“Our philanthropic focus is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers by introducing them to STEM subjects in a way that is engaging and fun. S2S Newark Technology Center and Thermo Fisher share the same commitment to STEM and our donation of laboratory instrumentation underscores that commitment by making math and science education more accessible to students.”

About Students 2 Science
As a model program with demonstrated success meeting the needs of the public and private sectors, Students 2 Science (S2S) aims to inspire, motivate, and educate our nation’s future STEM leaders by closing education, access, and opportunity gaps. S2S’s success is rooted in exemplary, hands-on science instruction at its commercial-grade laboratories that fosters workforce readiness. S2S achieve this through cross-sector collaborations between district leadership, corporate partners and institutions of higher education. The goal of S2S is to close the gap between education and New Jersey’s and the nation’s projected economic growth and global leadership. To learn more about Students 2 Science visit http://www.students2science.org/ or check them out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Students2Science/.

About Newark Public Schools
The Newark Public Schools, serving more than 36,000 students, is the largest and one of the oldest school systems in New Jersey. The racial and ethnic diversity of the city provides a rich educational experience for pre-kindergarten to secondary school students.

Growing Future Scientists in a Lab

By: Leslie Brody | Follow Leslie Brody on Twitter | Email the author | The Wall Street Journal

New Jersey nonprofit looks to lure teenagers to science jobs with real-world experiments in a high-tech facility

Gwynn Munn, a Students 2 Science instructor, leads students in an experiment. Students 2 Science brings teenagers and professional scientists together to tackle projects in a high-end lab.

Photo: Steve Remich for The Wall Street Journal

As owner of a laboratory that tested pharmaceuticals, Paul Winslow was dismayed by the scarcity of qualified scientists he could hire.

After selling his business a decade ago, he tried to do something about the shortage. Dr. Winslow leased space across from a cemetery in East Hanover, N.J., rustled up $4 million worth of donated equipment and recruited volunteer scientists to show teenagers the wonder of real-world experiments.

His goal: getting them hooked on science so they can land lucrative jobs and companies won’t have to leave New Jersey to find skilled workers.

About 22,600 jobs tied to science, technology, education and math are currently open in the state, according to the New Jersey Department of Labor. The department predicts these fields will account for 251,000 positions in New Jersey in 2024, up 9% from 2014.

“If you want to keep industry in New Jersey, you have to have the manpower,” Dr. Winslow says. “We want to provide the next generation of scientists.”

The growing nonprofit he co-founded, Students 2 Science, brings more than 2,000 teenagers yearly to tackle a series of projects with chemists, engineers and other professionals in a high-end lab. It has instruments far more complex than the Bunsen burners of yore, including a liquid chromatograph with a mass spectrometer that can analyze fluids and is worth about a half-million dollars. Experiments include testing drinks, such as Monster Energy and 5-hour Energy, to see which has the most caffeine. (Answer: coffee.)

Scientists and support come from a range of firms including Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Daiichi Sankyo Inc. and Merck & Co.

Most students come from poor cities like Newark, where school officials hope to create a second Students 2 Science lab downtown next fall. Leaders of the nonprofit and Newark schools have raised $1 million and want to raise another $7 million over five years to do so.

On a recent morning, 34 eighth-graders from the Abington Avenue School in Newark put on goggles, lab coats and rubber gloves to conduct four experiments designed to pique their interest and provoke analysis. One sought to create a sunscreen that would work better than commercial products. One aimed to find how much antacid it takes to calm a roiling stomach. And another showed why it takes 450 years for a disposable diaper or plastic water bottle to decompose.

Nayely Urena, 13 years old, took to the challenge. “You get to get your hands dirty,” she said.

As Jacek Kowalski, a retired vaccine researcher, helped two boys measure the viscosity of a solvent, he nudged them to be more careful. “The accuracy of your result depends on the accuracy of your observation,” he said. “You’re making observations and not writing them down? We never rely on our memory!”

Supporters like Chris Cerf, superintendent in Newark, say this lab offers much more than a glorified field trip. Students 2 Science also provides a “virtual lab” that helps children conduct experiments in their classrooms under the tutelage of a scientist in a studio, in an interactive videoconference that can train teachers as well as students.

“Too often educators have made science pretty uninteresting with big fat textbooks,” Mr. Cerf said. “This is really hands on.”

Nelson Ruiz, principal of Abington Avenue School, said that after his middle-schoolers visited the East Hanover lab last fall, they asked to start their own science club. Now there’s a coed group and one for girls that draws about 40.

According to surveys by Students 2 Science after visits to its lab last year, 42% of middle-schoolers said they were more likely to consider a science career, and 81% of high-school students showed deeper knowledge of job options in pharmaceuticals and chemistry.

“The natural world is the greatest show on earth,” said Dr. Kowalski. “I just want to yell it from the highest mountaintop so that kids out there who have the aptitude will have that experience.”