About The Baxter Center

The Baxter Center for Science Education (BCSE) is a collaborative partnership between Lindblom Math & Science Academy (LMSA), Round Lake Area Schools, the Office of Community Education Partnerships (OCEP) at Northwestern University, and Baxter International Foundation. The Baxter Center catalyzes partnerships and builds impactful student experiences and educator professional development programs, focused on the specific needs of communities in Chicago and the greater region, to promote student success and equity in STEM education and career pathways. Specifically, the Baxter Center seeks to increase: 1) access, opportunity, engagement, and empowerment of youth in STEM—primarily youth from communities traditionally underrepresented in STEM, and 2) representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in STEM fields and leadership roles.

What we do

Baxter Center programs have always been centered around providing authentic science content and learning experiences for students and teachers. Over the past few years, we have expanded the structure and content of our programs to reflect the evolving values and goals of our partners and our communities. We now focus on five primary areas of work:

1. Authentic Science Content: We’re known for offering hands-on, cutting-edge life science activities for teachers to try with their students.
2. Practice & Community: We design our programs to enable participants to enact what they learn, and to learn with and from each other.
3. Equity and Social Justice: We focus on access, opportunity, engagement, and empowerment of students and teachers, particularly those from communities historically underrepresented in STEM.
4. Teacher Leadership: We position and support teachers as professionals, cultivating and supporting teachers as leaders and co-designers of Baxter Center programs.
5. Community Connections: We know there are more teacher leaders in our network than we can support directly, though we wish we had more capacity. Luckily there are many organizations in the Chicago area that also do amazing work! We strive to become a Hub that connects resources that exist with those who want them.

How we work

Elevating Educators
The Baxter Center is best known for its innovative professional learning opportunities for Chicago-area educators. From our foundational programming like the Baxter Symposium and the our Workshop Series and Baxter Box Loaner Program to our expanding work with teacher leaders and providing research experiences, we support a variety of programs to engage new teachers and inspire long-time participants with cutting-edge science that can shape the next generation of innovators.

Engaging Students
The Baxter Center strives to provide students, particularly those from under-resourced schools and communities, with opportunities to engage in a range of experiences that help them see themselves as future STEM and manufacturing professionals. We design each experience with an eye towards empowering the youth we serve with strong STEM identities.

Supporting Schools and Districts
The Baxter Center has always been nimble, working to continuously assess and adapt to district, school, and teacher needs through collaborating at multiple levels. We are excited to serve as a connector within the Chicagoland K-12 STEM learning ecosystem by matching existing community resources and expertise with those who need them, building greater capacity for all.

Our reach

Since 2009 we have hosted over 229 workshops and trained 3,659 teachers from 402 schools in CPS and the greater Chicagoland area, reaching over 240,000 students.

What sets us apart

We provide comprehensive services to support science education in the classroom. We have learned that to affect real change, you can’t just do teacher PD, you can’t just give away equipment, and you can’t just visit the classroom. To be successful, you have to do all three as a living, responsive, flexible program built on strong relationships with teachers and schools, adjusting to their evolving needs.