USC JEP STEM Education Programs

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The Joint Educational Project's STEM Programs include the Young Scientists Program, the Medical STEM Program, and the Wonderkids Program.

10/06/2026

We interviewed future scientists at Mack Elementary and asked them why they like science !! 🧬 🥼 See their fun response below 🤩. Post by Nickol Georgy nickol georgy USC Joint Educational Project

10/05/2026

Our 5th grade scientists have been exploring the world above us! From learning about the layers of the atmosphere and following water through the water cycle to creating clouds in a bottle, students got to see weather and Earth science come to life! 🌎☁️🌊 Post by Jimin Han Jimin Han USC Joint Educational Project

09/22/2026

Our virtual after school Wonderkids program starts next week and all of the activities supplies have been packaged and shipped 📦 of to a record breaking 70 students ‼️‼️

We are excited to explore the following topics this Fall:

🪐 Space
🧬 Ancient Human DNA
🌍 Earthquake Safety
💄 The Science of Beauty
🚑 Addiction Science

Here is a sneak peak at some of the activities we will be doing.

If you want to know more check out our YouTube https://m.youtube.com/?ra=m where we will be posting weekly recaps on the lessons and experiments!

09/17/2026

We asked our 4th graders what they want to be when they grow up, and their answers were limitless! As Ms. Steele mentioned, these students are beginning to envision themselves in careers they may not have considered before. Through JEP STEM we hope to inspire the next generation of doctors, engineers, and leaders of science!🔬

09/14/2026

Our virtual afterschool program Wonderkids kickstarts on September 28th and features 5 fun STEM topics this semester!

🔭 Space
🧬 Ancient Human DNA
🛘 Earthquake Safety
💄 Science of Beauty
🏥 Addiction Science

Below are the names of the guest scientists for the fall 2026 semester. This semester we have two JEP STEM alumni from USC Dornsife and two current JEP STEM staffers sharing their expertise. Fight on ✌🏽

09/09/2026

USC JEP STEM is off and running! This last week our team of TAs observed their classrooms for the year to prepare for a year of teaching!

08/25/2026

Please join us in welcoming our seven newest JEP STEM educators! 🎉🔬

🍎 1st Grade: Alejandra Banuelos and Sumia Dawla
🌱 2nd Grade: Maggie Wang
🧬 3rd Grade Medical STEM: Meggie Nguyen and Dylan Luong
🚀 5th Grade: Kevin Law and Nico Matias

We’re excited to have them bring hands-on, inquiry-based STEM learning to elementary classrooms across our partner schools this fall. Welcome to the JEP STEM team! ❤️💛

USC Joint Educational Project USC Dornsife

08/19/2026

🍝 Learning by doing, even for our STEM education leaders! 🏗️

During our Palm Springs training, our STEM Education Leadership Staff teamed up in pairs for a classic engineering challenge: Who can build the tallest tower using only spaghetti and marshmallows?

It may look simple, but this activity puts so many important skills into action: teamwork, collaboration, communication, problem-solving, creativity, and engineering design principles.

More importantly, our leaders experienced firsthand what inquiry-based, hands-on STEM learning can look and feel like for our students. Teams had to test ideas, learn from what worked (and what didn’t!), make adjustments, and keep building.

By putting ourselves in the role of the learner, we can better understand how to create environments where students feel supported to ask questions, experiment, collaborate, take risks, and redesign. 💡

Sometimes the best way to understand hands-on STEM education is to get hands-on ourselves!

And yes, there was definitely some friendly competition for the tallest tower! 🏆

🎥 Special thanks to naomi 🇪🇹 for capturing this time-lapse and all the teamwork, problem-solving, and creativity in action!

08/19/2026

Day 1 of the JEP Retreat in Palm Springs! ☀️🌴

Our JEP STEM Leadership staff kicked off Fall 2026 by preparing for an exciting semester ahead while connecting with and learning more about the other JEP USC Joint Educational Project programs.

We’re also excited to welcome our Fall 2026 STEM Leadership team, with some new faces and returning leaders! ❤️💛

🧪 1st Grade Coordinator: Nickol Georgy nickol georgy
🔬 2nd Grade Coordinator: Rachel Coffey Rach🤸🏼‍♀️
🧬 3rd Grade Coordinator: Caleb Clary, returning coordinator Caleb Clary
🌎 4th Grade Coordinator: Naomi Kassahun naomi 🇪🇹
🚀 5th Grade Coordinator: Jimin Han Jimin Han
✨ WonderKids Coordinator & STEM Education Fellow: Anamika, one of our veteran STEM leaders (Anamika )

Of course, we couldn’t start the semester without a little hands-on STEM fun of our own! Our team put their engineering design skills to the test with a challenge to build the tallest and most stable tower using only spaghetti and marshmallows. 🍝🏗️

We saw some creative and impressive designs, but Anamika and Jimin took the win! 🏆👏

A great first day of collaborating, creating, and getting ready to bring another semester of fun, inquiry-based, hands-on science to our students. Here’s to Fall 2026! 🔬❤️💛

07/29/2026

Our STEM Director Dr. DJ Kast is grateful to have participated in the TeachEngineering Champions Institute in Boulder, Colorado this week! It was an inspiring professional development experience that connected educators, engineers, students, and community STEM leaders who are all working to make engineering education more accessible and engaging.

Some highlights included hearing from engineering students and faculty, exploring hands-on engineering design activities like snazzy sneaker 👟 , learning about programs like Future City, and connecting with an incredible cohort of educators passionate about bringing engineering into K-12 classrooms.

One of my biggest takeaways was thinking about how to share these amazing, free TeachEngineering resources with the communities we serve. We excited to incorporate them into the Medical STEM Program, WonderKids, educator workshops, and future STEM outreach opportunities.

Thank you to the TeachEngineering team for an engaging and collaborative experience. Looking forward to putting these ideas into action!

NGSS FutureEngineers ProfessionalDevelopment USC Joint Educational Project JEP STEM Education Programs University of Colorado Boulder CU Boulder Life

Address

801 W 34th Street
Los Angeles, CA
90089

Website

https://dornsife.usc.edu/young-scientist-program/

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