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This year, the K-12 University Center at Rochester Institute of Technology made its mark at Maker Faire Rochester – a gathering held annually to provide individuals with an outlet to display the work they do through hobbies, experiments and projects, with engineers, artists, scientists and various other crafters. Celebrating its first event in 2014, the event included more than 200 exhibitors and an estimated 7,200 attendees, including representatives from RIT K-12 programs, such as AEOP Apprenticeships and Fellowships, and STEP.

Dr. Naomi Lee is passionate about involving native youth in science, technology, engineering and math; and to prove there’s a STEM identity and need within the indigenous community. Lee, a Rochester Institute of Technology grad, hosts a program at Northern Arizona University that helps expose STEM innovation and research experiences to underserved students. It's sponsored in part by Army Educational Outreach Program Apprenticeships and Fellowships, which is administered through RIT’s K-12 University Center.

At Burger and Roth junior high schools in the Rush-Henrietta Central School District, about 50 students work daily with staff from the Science and Technology Entry Program – also known as STEP – through Rochester Institute of Technology’s K-12 University Center. Enrichment activities offered are meant to help foster academic growth, and often go beyond the classroom to support students. This school year, STEP Assistant Director Lisa Michalek is hosting weekly workshops with students that provide homework help, feature STEM activities, and highlight various development topics. It’s similar at other schools within the county that the STEP team is embedded in with outreach specialists Meg Brown, Rick King and Dana Storti.

When author Nikesh Shukla makes a visit to a new town, one of the things he likes to do is connect with students at local schools. In September, that’s just what he did while visiting Rochester Institute of Technology for an event hosted by the Cary Graphic Arts Collection and Wallace Library at Rochester Institute of Technology. The event was made possible with help from Curator of RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection Steven Galbraith, in partnership with the K-12 University Center that facilitates the university’s relationship with Rochester Prep.

WHEC-TV talks to Donna Burnette, executive director of RIT K-12 University Center, about the center's move to downtown Rochester.

On Wednesday morning, RIT President David Munson, K-12 University Center Executive Director Donna Burnette, and Rochester Mayor Malik Evans cut the ribbon in front of the K-12 University Center’s new home at 40 Franklin St., in the heart of downtown Rochester. This move from RIT’s Henrietta campus to the city will allow the center to greatly expand the connections it has already forged with the Rochester community.

The K-12 University Center's move off campus and into downtown Rochester was made to expand room for more work within the facility as the department develops additional partnerships and programs. It was previously housed at a modular unit adjacent to Brown Hall that has since been demolished to make space for a new science research center.

Just like fingerprints, everyone is different. It’s one of the messages in “Happy in our Skin,” a picture book about the beauty and uniqueness of differences in everyone, and something similar that Margaret's House Director Jennifer Tills hopes to showcase during an event the childcare center is hosting to help connect families within the Rochester Institute of Technology community.

Rochester Business Journal reports that more than 50 underrepresented public and charter school students in grades third through sixth participated in the inaugural AT&T ROC Jr. Game Dev Camp Powered by RIT.

Thanks to a grant awarded before the pandemic to RIT’s K-12 University Center by the Army Educational Outreach Program, it allowed funds to go toward free, hands-on STEM experiences for middle and high school students this summer through Camp Tiger. Inspired by AEOP’s eCybermission, and Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, the camp offerings focused on various opportunities through the U.S. Army-based program, in addition to learning skills needed to prepare students to conduct their own research.

Spectrum News features NTID’s Explore Your Future camp, a six-day program for deaf and hard-of-hearing students from all over, to explore possible careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

Rochester Institute of Technology’s imaging science department is collaborating with the Army Educational Outreach Program Apprenticeships and Fellowship for the first time this summer to provide high school seniors with a paid experience to learn about the discipline through innovation and research.