Developing an identity as a chemist (or potential future chemist) is important at the university level for students pursuing a bachelors, and for students exploring possible careers in secondary school. By designing an outreach course where undergraduates design and lead hands-on lessons for 9-12<sup>th</sup> grade students at local partner institutions, we aim to provide opportunities for our undergraduates to develop identities as chemists by being in a leadership role teaching a lesson, while at the same time providing near-peer mentors to local high school students. First offered in Spring 2022, our Chemistry Service-Learning class gives undergraduates with at least one semester of general chemistry a mentored chance to develop, practice, implement a hands-on lesson teaching a central chemical principle. In the initial iteration of this class, we partnered with Willamette Academy, an on-campus college access and enrichment program for students from the local school district that are historically underserved in higher education (defined as low-income, people of color, recent immigrants, or first-generation college students) on our main campus, allowing the activities to take place in our general chemistry labs. Students wrote reflections on their experience immediately before and immediately after their activities, as well as a final reflection at the end of the semester. In our next iteration of the class, we will be expanding to include a second partner (The Chemawa Indian School, a BIE operated boarding school for Native and Indigenous Students in the US located a short drive from campus) and also broadening training for students early in the semester to include culturally responsive educational practices. This will allow students to develop their program initially on campus and then make any needed adjustments before presenting it to students in a less familiar environment. In this talk, I will introduce the program design and talk about lessons learned from our first offering of the course.

Chemistry service-learning at Willamette: Developing a high school outreach course

Where thousands of chemistry professionals meet to share ideas and advance scientific and technical knowledge. Spring 2023 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch at the end of March.

ACS Spring 2023

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.