Editor’s Note: ASCB’s COMPASS Outreach Grant program supports projects that engage the public in science and create opportunities for students to connect with scientific research. The following article describes Science Day at Dartmouth, an annual outreach event that brings together scientists, trainees, and community members through hands-on STEM activities and educational programming. This event received support from ASCB through the COMPASS Outreach Grant program.
Science Day at Dartmouth returned April 25 for its 11th year. Kids pressed strawberries to extract DNA, grew candy crystals, built bristle bots out of toothbrush heads, and watched a demonstration of quantum sensing using actual diamonds. For five hours, the Life Sciences Center at Dartmouth became a science fair without the competition — just curiosity.
The event drew 605 attendees and roughly 180 volunteers, the highest volunteer count in the event’s history.
Graduate students organized and ran the day entirely with support from the Guarini School and a group of local and national sponsors. The program spanned more than a dozen disciplines, including biochemistry, microbiology, earth science, computer science, physics and astronomy, ecology, and psychology, with activities calibrated for kids from first grade through high school.
High schoolers had their own track, run by Semillas to Science, a graduate-student-led organization that mentors underrepresented and first-generation students. A college application Q&A and a graduate student research poster session gave older attendees a direct line to researchers working in fields from immunology to energy systems.
Partner organizations Dartmouth NEXT, the New Hampshire Academy of Science, and SACNAS at Dartmouth also hosted stations, connecting kids to STEM mentorship resources beyond campus.
The 180 volunteers came from across Dartmouth: graduate students, postdocs, undergraduates, faculty, and staff, representing more than a decade of community investment in making science accessible to the Upper Valley.
About the Author:
This post was collaboratively written by several ASCB staff members.
