About

Now more than ever before, STEM initiatives are impacting every area of our society. The next generation of leaders in our communities will need to have a solid foundational understanding of scientific concepts, be comfortable across disciplines with quantitative reasoning and courageous in their questioning to foster innovation, collaboration, and advancement. Authentic laboratory research strengthens students’ hands-on problem-solving techniques, comfort with failure, written and oral communication skills, and creative and quantitative thinking.

SWIRLSS is a STEM nonprofit (we are currently filing for nonprofit status) whose mission is to establish a national network of research laboratories on high school campuses.

How Does It Work?

Our college and university member labs have committed to hosting two SWIRLSS postdoctoral fellows in their labs whom will each transition to running a lab at a local high school. One fellow will be placed at a local independent school and one at a charter/public school. The collegiate lab and two high schools will form a long-lasting SWIRLSS cohort.

During the postdoctoral years, fellows begin to work with their future high school homes to design lab space and receive teacher training. Once established on the high campuses, the fellows will run an active research program similar to what one might find at a top tier liberal arts college. High school students take part in original research that will directly support the research being done at their partner university lab. The high school students have the opportunity to participate in the lab by taking an extracurricular course for credit or taking AP Capstone, a two year AP consisting of a seminar course one year followed by a research program one year. The curriculum will be developed in partnership with each high school to best meet their needs. Additionally, we encourage each high school to identify a current teacher interested in learning how to perform the experiments by spending a summer in the university lab. This teacher will then be able to work with the SWIRLSS postdoctoral fellow as a teaching mentor and the fellow will act as a research mentor. Eventually both teachers will help run the secondary school lab.

At SWIRLSS we are passionate about creating a new generation of diverse scientists that not only gain the technical skills to be leaders in STEM fields but gain a strong foundation in communication. As such, there are several opportunities during the academic year for students from both high schools in a cohort to come together to present and discuss their research. There will also be an annual national conference that brings together all SWIRLSS labs, both collegiate and high school to present at and attend seminars, participate in workshops, poster sessions, and social events.

If you are finishing your PhD and are interested in bringing high-level research to high school students apply to be a SWIRLSS postdoctoral fellow at one of our participating labs. Additionally, if you have a lab you'd like to do a postdoc in that is not yet a member lab you may apply together for consideration. If you are a college or university lab or high school teacher or administrator that would like more information or would like to apply to participate, please contact us at swirlssinfo@gmail.com.

College and University Member Labs