About The Baxter Center

The Baxter Center for Science Education (BCSE) is a collaborative partnership between the Office of Community Education Partnerships (OCEP) at Northwestern University, Lindblom Math & Science Academy (LMSA), Round Lake Area Schools, and the Baxter International Foundation, with evolving and responsive expansions to our communities of Cook and Lake Counties more broadly. The BCSE provides impactful educator professional development programs and student experiences and catalyzes mutually beneficial collaborations, 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, we seek 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

BCSE programs have always been centered around providing authentic science content and learning experiences for teachers and students. 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 communities. Our work is guided by five overlapping pillars:

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. We see health and environmental justice as central areas to address in our programming.
4. Teacher Leadership: We position and support teachers as professionals, cultivating and supporting teachers as leaders and co-designers of BCSE programs.
5. Community Connections: We seek to build greater capacity for all through serving as a Connector, matching existing community resources and expertise with needs.

How we work

Elevating Educators
The BCSE is best known for its innovative professional learning opportunities for Chicago-area educators. From our foundational programming like the Baxter Symposium, 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 BCSE strives to provide students, particularly those from underserved schools and communities, with opportunities to engage in a range of experiences that help them see themselves as future STEM and manufacturing professionals.

Supporting Schools and Districts
The BCSE has always been nimble, working to continuously assess and adapt to partner school and community needs through collaborating at multiple levels. This allows us to be responsive to the interests and needs of educators and students at scale, increase capacity for professional development, and engage educators new to our programs.

Our reach

Since 2009 we have hosted over 260 workshops and trained 3,959 teachers from 426 schools in CPS and the greater Chicagoland area, reaching over 260,000 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.