No Small Matter Molecular Engineering Fair ignites—literally—a love of science

When the lobby of the William Ekhardt Research Center was transformed into a playground of microscopes, lasers, beakers and whirling, twirling robots, Jon-Edward Stokes’ experiment was off to the side.

“I’m away from everything because, you know—fire,” Stokes said, standing next to a line of blasting Bunsen burners.

Stokes was one of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) and UChicago Physics students demonstrating the wonders of science and engineering for South Side middle school students during UChicago PME’s yearly No Small Matter Molecular Engineering Fair.

Stokes’ experiment scorched various materials under Bunsen burners to show amazed students—through protective Plexiglas, of course—how the flames’ different colors tell scientists what a material is made of.

It wasn’t too long ago that Stokes, whose family moved to Hyde Park when he was in the eighth grade, could have been one of those students.

“UChicago has always been in the back of my neighborhood,” said Stokes, now a PhD student studying battery electrolytes in the Amanchukwu Lab. “It’s really important for me to be here helping out, just to show you really can do anything, regardless of how you look or where you came from.”

Lighting the fire

Connecting UChicago with the surrounding community is a major goal for the event, now in its fourth year, said UChicago PME Assistant Dean of Education and Outreach Laura Rico-Beck. But the major thrust is, of course, sparking a love of science and engineering in children.

“Young students ask bold, often unexpected questions that challenge researchers to think and communicate differently. In return, they get to see what research looks like up close—and begin to imagine themselves in those spaces and roles,” Rico-Beck said. “It’s a conversation, not a lecture—and that’s where real learning happens.”

The 2025 No Small Matter Molecular Engineering Fair welcomed 135 sixth- through eighth-graders from four South Side schools—Wadsworth STEM Elementary School, Ray Elementary School, Amelia Earhart Options for Knowledge School and the UChicago Charter School at Woodlawn.

“It's worth it to help kids realize the sheer breadth of different things you can do with science,” said Jaz Belz, a PhD student in the Engel Group, as they casually set up a series of lasers and mirrors in a brown cardboard box. “It’s no longer an abstract thing. It's something they can see and interact with and get excited about.”

Seeking Perfection

Earhart sixth-graders Averie Robinson and Kristodea Amina-Kwakye didn’t know they were getting a lesson in machine learning and artificial intelligence as they played Perfection, the 1970s Hasbro game where players short shapes into slots before a timer dings and a spring scatters the board.

The game was part of a larger lesson UChicago PME PhD student Jireh Garcia and Physics PhD student Juan Pablo Gonzalez-Aguilera wanted to teach about machine learning. The students would play Perfection several times, improving their strategy with each attempt.

“What we're teaching the students here is basically how, through trial and error, you can keep learning a new strategy that would essentially make you faster in the game,” Garcia said. “And this is how machine learning models also learn.”

After seeking Perfection perfection, the students would have a go at Go, a digital version of the 2,500-year-old Chinese strategy board game. This showed the students how machine learning improves with practice, a lesson they learned the hard way.

“We only played the game one time, and the computer has played thousands of times, and plus they use their strategy from previous games that they played,” Robinson said. “So it was kind of hard to beat the game. And we didn’t beat the game.”

Back to the classroom

While students gaped at chemicals, learned aerodynamics from paper airplanes and learned quantum principles from video games designed by UChicago PME’s STAGE Center, the teachers worked to connect the lessons to the classroom.

“Outside of the exposure, we're also studying environmental issues like plastic pollution, so it's related to our curriculum right now as well,” Wadsworth teacher Kizzy Peterson said. “It helps bring the lessons to life and give the students some real-life experiences to go along with the classwork.”

Lakeshia Shipp, the coordinator for Earhart’s STEAM—Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics—program, has been bringing students for several years, part of a larger collaboration between UChicago PME and Earhart.

“We’ve been working together for the last couple of years, coming up with programming and activities and opportunities for the students,” Shipp said.

Some students started to see themselves as the ones in the lab coats.

“Science is one of my favorite subjects, so it's something that I want to learn more about,” said Akari Dawson, an eighth-grader at Wadsworth. “Maybe I could turn it into a career, if that's something I want to do in the future.”

Others just enjoyed the show.

“What I'm most excited to see here today is just how science works,” said Wadsworth student Symphoni Jefferson. “I'm not really interested in making it a career, but I think science is cool.”

• Learn how your school can connect to UChicago PME’s K-12 Educational Outreach Programs