The First 7 Years
This year marked an important milestone for us as an organization. We completed our proverbial first 7 years. So it was a perfect moment to take stock and assess our path so far. Despite being a small organization, everyone on our team shares a feeling of groundedness and confidence that we are providing solid high-quality content for our hundreds of thousands of devoted readers.
In addition to our primary content – scientific articles – this year we experimented with a lot of new types of content: dual-level articles for differentiated instruction, interviews with researchers, video lesson ideas, and a couple of podcasts.
Thank you for being on this educational mission with us.
Sincerely,
Tanya Dimitrova
Founder and Managing Editor
Content
In 2022 we published:
- 48 new scientific articles
- 6 of the articles are in 2 reading levels
- We covered topics from a wide range of fields:
- 23 articles translated from English into Spanish, French, Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, and Bulgarian
- Video content:
- 29 video interviews for Ask-a-Scientist
- 12 lesson idea videos
- Audio content:
- Lesson Ideas Podcast (Season 1): 10 episodes specifically designed for middle school science teachers
- SJK Audio edition podcast: 68 episodes, providing audio versions of almost all our articles from the past 2 years
- 20+ blog posts with article collections, lesson ideas, and other useful resources
Audience
At the end of 2022, we are reaching:
- 5500+ subscribers to our monthly newsletter (Their number doubled in just 12 months.)
- 4000+ followers on our Facebook page
- 1700+ followers on Twitter
Over the past 12 months:
- Our articles have been downloaded more than 250,000 times.
- We had 330,000+ unique readers.
- Our website had over 1 million pageviews.
- Our map had more than 600K views this year.
- Our YouTube channel had more than 18K views in the past 12 months (4 times more than the previous year).
Who are our readers?
The majority are teachers – high school and middle school science and ELA/ESL. Each teacher who uses our resources shares them with an average of 50 students.
- 55% are students from economically disadvantaged areas (schools with Title 1 or Free and Reduced Meals Program)
- 60% of classes include students with English as a second language
Geographic distribution of readers:
- 60% of our readers are in the USA
- 15% are in UK, Canada, and Australia
- 25% are spread out across all other countries in the world
Teacher survey snippets
So far, I have used these articles as extensions for students after we have done a solid amount of learning on a certain topic. After students read, we discuss the approach the scientists took and their claims and evidence to support those claims.
I used your articles to reinforce a topic, to show the practical application of concepts, and to teach summary skills (creating an abstract where they pull the main ideas from each of your sections). I LOVE these articles! I use them as a stepping stone to dive into the more complicated scientific articles and appreciate that you include those links to the actual articles they were based on. My students really like them! It’s reading science without all the technical jargon that is intimidating.
I rely HEAVILY on Science Journal for Kids! Amazing resource. Especially the read-along for my brilliant little Dyslexic scientists. 5th graders stun me with their insight and enthusiasm when the content is accessible.
This is fabulous! I have shared your incredible resource with my teaching colleagues, as this is such a useful tool for our inquiry research. We do our best to contact experts for interviews to gather research (when we are able to source a contact) and this is quite a difficult process for the younger students. Being able to contact a Scientist directly, through a credible and reliable platform, and who shares a wealth of relevant research is amazing! Thank you for your work on bringing such an exciting research tool to students and teachers.
New content requests
As part of our annual teacher feedback survey, some of our readers request additional features or types of content. This year, we were able to accommodate many of them. Here are two examples:
Articles with simple methods that could be assessed for validity and reliability and simple science data that could be graphed by students. I would ask my students to write a discussion and it would be great to then compare what they wrote with a real scientists’ discussion and conclusion.
We agree that it’s great if the students can graph the data from the original research themselves. So in response, we developed a Data graphing and analysis activity for our article How can we make sure to catch only the fish we want to eat?
This was added to our Data Analysis Collection of teaching activities and lesson ideas.
Fun, out-of-the-box type research that kids can laugh at or be grossed out by.
In response, we adapted this research paper about intestinal worm infections in people who lived in medieval England. (Spoiler alert: on average half of them had roundworms. Phew, that makes us grateful for modern hygiene and healthcare!)
Team
Science Journal for Kids was produced by a team of:
- 4 editors
- 10 writers
- 2 designers
- 10+ support members and volunteers
The longest-standing team members have been with us since 2016, sharing their experience with newer team members and ensuring consistency of style and quality.
Financials
2022 Revenue: $76,221 in total
- Grants from foundations: $39,000
- Government grants: $13,800
- Program service revenue (publication fees): $20,720
- Donations (contributions from individuals): $2,701
2022 Expenses: $76,269 in total
- Program services
- Scientific articles: $52,590
- Audio, Video & Additional content: $10,635
- Management and General: $10,180
- Fundraising: $2,864
In 2023, we will continue our mission to make scientific discoveries accessible and fun for all students around the world.
