Society for Science’s blog is intended to act in tandem with other organizational programming to both explore the impact of the programs and create a resource from which other teams within the Society can pull content for their own promotional use. By telling the stories of what teachers have been able to do through our outreach and equity programs or chronicling the success of middle and high school students at our prestigious national STEM competitions, we aim to show that all young people with a passion for STEM have a place for in these fields and that their voices matter. Through sharing the insights and experiences of teachers who participate in our Advocate Program or use Science News in their classrooms, and spotlighting community nonprofits who have received our grants, we aimed to create a bank of stories that describes the diverse network that makes up our thriving, national STEM community. These stories serve as building blocks for our network.
To create a varied stream of blog content to both stand on its own and serve additional programmatic needs within the Society, we worked closely with other teams, such as the Science Education Programs and alumni teams. Through thoughtful collaboration, we created a blog that truly reflects the scope of our programming, illuminates the great work enabled by our grants and helps to build and maintain powerful partnerships and relationships with our sponsors and vast alumni network.
We interviewed students to write pieces highlighting their research, Finals Week experiences and viewpoints, and through doing so created a deep well of stories that show students all over the world that their voices are valuable in STEM. Through these stories, students see that opportunities are available to them and recognize a pressing need for their talents in these fields. In addition, we worked hard to cover and include the experiences of educators from across the country to highlight both their struggles and their triumphs in inspiring the next generation of scientists, technicians, engineers and mathematicians.
The stories on our blog highlighted the individual impact of our programming and offered key insights into what it means to make a quality STEM education in this country truly accessible to all. Blog posts also shone a light on the achievements of our vast and impressive network of Society for Science competition alumni, which not only fosters a community of STEM professionals but helps students envision their own pathways and futures in these crucial fields. We also covered topical and salient issues, such as artificial intelligence and climate change, to provide insights on how they are impacting young people pursuing STEM as well as their teachers as they work to build curriculum around the latest scientific breakthroughs.
Since the beginning of 2023 we have published 70 articles that reflect the scope of work the Society for Science undertakes as well as the diversity of individuals we create resources for. According to data from Google analytics, we have received 123.7K views on the blog over 105.7K sessions, with 83.9K active users. Every programmatic team within our organization contributed to and/or used content created by the blog this year.
The content created to highlight the winners of our national STEM competitions was also used by Science News Explores, a publication intended to make STEM education more accessible to kids in middle and high school. This underscores the significance of the content created for the blog within the larger organizational ecosystem, as well as the deep coordination between different teams to create alignment across publications. Our editorial calendar was strongly influenced by the programmatic cycle of the Society to align the blog’s content with organizational goals. This synergy with the organization’s structure is a unique aspect of the Society’s blog, which created an ROI beyond just clicks on the posts themselves.
