Establishing long-term partnerships with high school teachers is key in fostering strong mentorship between graduate student outreach volunteers and high school students, which can have a transformative impact on the students. The graduate student coordinators of our Stanford Chemistry Outreach Program have joined forces with individual teachers at local high schools to schedule 4+ visits to their classrooms each academic year.  Coordinators have established continuity between visits by recruiting a committed set of volunteers. By establishing this team of high school teacher, outreach coordinator, and volunteers at the beginning of each year, we are able to plan lab content that ties more closely with the teacher’s curriculum and delivers concepts more effectively to the students. The consistent set of volunteers are also able to build stronger relationships with the students, which has facilitated more productive discussions that allow students to truly connect material both between the labs and their own lives. These relationships have allowed us to recruit for our summer shadowing program, where students shadow a chemistry graduate student mentor for two weeks to experience research in an academic lab. This continued mentoring has allowed volunteers to help students think about their next career steps, conveying what opportunities exist in higher education as well as providing them with insight on and encouragement towards science-based career opportunities after high school.<br/>

Leveraging teacher partnerships to facilitate effective high school visits and mentorship

255th National Meeting (2018)

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