JEI provides young science enthusiasts the opportunity to receive feedback from PhD-level scientists and experience the process of peer review. A complementary goal of our organization is to make students, teachers, and mentors aware that this opportunity exists and is free, and to give them the means to turn student projects into publishable work. To achieve this, JEI organizes several outreach activities in the Boston area and beyond.
In the past, we’ve spread awareness of JEI by reaching out at science fairs and teacher’s conferences, both locally and around the country. JEI representatives have engaged with high school students at the Philadelphia Science Festival, Cambridge Science Festival, the Annual Boston Public School Citywide Science Fair, the Massachusetts State Science & Engineering Fair, and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).
This year, JEI outreach is developing ways to better integrate peer-reviewed scientific papers into the classroom. JEI will be working with Boston-area teachers to develop lesson plans that use JEI published manuscripts to not only teach students about scientific concepts, but all about scientific writing and the science publication process. Once completed, these lesson plans will be made publicly available to teachers worldwide to use in their classrooms.
The goal behind this integrative approach is to make the scientific publication process more accessible to students everywhere, with the long-term goal of getting more students to pursue their own research projects.