When Life Gives You Lemons, Do Outreach! A Program for University Professors to Virtually Connect to K-12 Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic and beyond

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in the Spring of 2020, North Carolina (NC) public schools moved to distance education in which all students attended classes on video conferencing programs. During this time, NC State University faculty offered virtual guest talks to NC K-12 students. Eighty-eight faculty from three NC State colleges volunteered and 161 teachers requested talks, with approximately 5,400 students. Overall, significantly more teachers from the NC Piedmont region requested speakers (p<0.0001); significantly more urban teachers requested talks (p<0.0001); and, significantly more elementary school teachers requested speakers than middle (p<0.0001) or high school (p<0.0001) teachers. The program was beneficial to teachers and students, exposing them to real-world research. In the future, the program should be expanded to include more teachers, students, and disciplines, and continue beyond the pandemic.