Robots demonstrating dance moves made popular by the late entertainer Michael Jackson, mini-catapults sending plastic gourds soaring toward a cauldron, paper airplane competitions and ice cream frozen by liquid nitrogen were among the demonstrations on offer at the fifth annual University of Chicago South Side Science Festival.
Quiance Bibbs was there with his 7-year-old son, Carter, a dinosaur enthusiast, and daughter Riley, 8, who loves to do experiments. The family trekked from Park Forest to partake in the fun for the first time. The dancing robot was their favorite.
On their second visit to the fest was the Roach family — Herb and Tonika with their 5-month-old daughter, Haley, and second grader son, Haydn. The family, who’d ventured from Richton Park to Hyde Park, had just walked through an inflatable colon, complete with polyps and perforation, where children played peek-a-boo.
After stopping by the medical tent with a mannequin that helps train medical staff to give fluids, listen to heartbeats, and perform eye dilation, the Roach family headed back to the patient simulator. Haydn is already considering a career as a physician, according to his mother. “We’re here for the hands-on exploration and exposure for him,” Tonika Roach, who is a nurse, said.
Nearly 4,600 visitors attended the free daylong event, which offered more than 1,300 hands-on science demonstrations and experiments, organizers said. Molly Tully, a University of Chicago doctoral student in cell and molecular biology, has co-led the festival’s 1,000 volunteers, made up of graduate students and the general public, for the last two years. The fest has grown exponentially since its debut in 2022.
The all-day, all-ages event, known as S3F, highlighted the importance of STEM education, careers in science and understanding how science affects daily life.
After seeing the impact of Europe’s spring festival “Long Night of Sciences,” where universities and research institutions in Germany open their doors to the public to learn what academics and researchers are working on, three U. of C. professors, Sarah King, Hannes Bernien and Maanasa Raghavan, wanted to do something similar. During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, the trio came together with a mission to engage more with the local community and get them excited about science and science literacy.
The festival debuted in 2022 to connect South Side community members with science education resources.
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“The vision for S3F was to bring people in,” said Aaron Esser-Kahn, professor of molecular engineering at the U. of C. Pritzker School. He noted that U. of C. President Paul Alivisatos said he wanted to make the university “outward facing.”
“I think S3F is the living representation of that, Esser-Kahn said. “It is as much as possible bringing people from the community, from the entirety of the South Side and all of Chicago to experience what the campus looks like, and to get a taste of what inquiry-based learning looks like.”
The prime demographic for the science fest falls within the 5- to 15-year-old range, and since the beginning, the institution has tried to make the experience as rich as possible for children, bringing in elements of science that are more design- and competition-oriented.
Moving robots and blending smoothies by pedaling a stationary bike have a wide appeal. Over the years, organizers kept the fan-favorite liquid-nitrogen ice cream and added interactive activities that test hypotheses or ask “How do I build this?”
On Saturday, Lincoln Square resident Gloria Mlope filmed her fifth grade daughter Makela on the stationary bike. “It was worth the trip,” Gloria Mlope said.
The experience lets researchers and scientists practice their science communication skills, which are increasingly important for making science more accessible to the general public, Tully said, adding that community service is integral to really understanding where you live. Seeing the joy the kids in the community experience is her favorite part of the festival and why she volunteers every year.
Annika Sharma, a U. of C. doctoral student in neurobiology and this year’s lead festival planner, has been involved in the event since it began. Her lab runs a demo at the festival that lets youth look at soil bugs under a microscope, known as larval locomotion land.
“That’s a particularly exciting activity for younger kids,” she said. “For a lot of them, it’s their first time looking under a microscope at everyday material. You see larval flies, silverfish, a bunch of other bugs, and we try to help them identify them.”
Now more than ever, Sharma said, it’s important the community sees science not as something that only happens at elite institutions behind keycard-locked doors, but as something that makes a difference in their lives.
The beauty of these environments is that “we bring people into the fold,” Chuka Onuh said while helping children listen to the heartbeat of the patient simulator.
“We are not an ivory tower; we’re a front porch, and we allow people to come in and see what we do,” the third-year medical student at U. of C.’s Pritzker School of Medicine said. In this way, young minds can follow their curiosity into careers in the sciences and see people in roles and labs on campus who look like them.
A fan of the inventor of modern air conditioning, Willis Carrier, Esser-Kahn, the molecular engineering professor, has long been passionate about people taking their ideas and changing how we live as a society.
“These are the types of people we don’t think about shaping our built world, but very much do,” he said. “I’ve always thought that if you can bring new ideas and figure out how to have them help people, that can be a great way to spend your life. We’re trying to share some of that with people and spark that curiosity and excitement in them as young students.”