Many area museums offer free admission days for Illinois residents. Check the web sites for specific dates. Also remember that many local libraries offer free passes to local museums, zoos, etc. In addition, active-duty military, educators, WIC/LINK card holders and members of certain other groups often receive free admission to area attractions.

Here is the current information on free days and free admission at the Art Institute. This is from their website: 

Illinois Residents

Admission will be free for Illinois residents on weekdays (Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays) November 29–December 17, 2021, and January 3–March 17, 2022.

To receive free admission tickets, Illinois residents must reserve them online in advance. Resident status will be verified using the zip code associated with the billing address provided.

NO ADVANCE TICKET REQUIRED

The following groups are invited to visit our galleries at no cost every day—even when museum admission tickets are sold out.

In order to receive your free admission benefits, simply show the corresponding identification at the admissions desk in either museum lobby. Free admission benefits are not single use—you are welcome to use them any time you would like to visit.

Kids under 14

Admission is always free for children under 14. These free tickets are available online as well as on-site at the admissions counters.

Chicago Teens

Museum admission is free for Chicago teens under the age of 18, thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Glenn and Claire Swogger and the Redbud Foundation. See more opportunities and resources for teens.

Active-Duty Military

As part of the Blue Star Museums program, active-duty service members receive free admission all year long. Plus, from Armed Forces Day (Saturday, May 15, 2021 this year) through Labor Day, we also welcome service members and their households. Please bring your active-duty military ID to the admissions counter to receive this benefit.

LINK and WIC Cardholders

As part of Museums for All, LINK and WIC cardholders and anyone in their households receive free general admission to the museum and all ticketed special exhibitions. Simply present your card along with a valid photo ID.

Illinois Educators

Free admission is available to current Illinois educators, including pre-K–12 teachers, teaching artists working in schools, and homeschool parents. Educators can register online to receive a voucher for a complimentary ticket to the museum. This voucher must be presented—as a printed document or on a smartphone—with a valid educator ID at one of the museum’s admission counters. Learn more about requesting complimentary educator admission.

Kids Museum Passport

Sponsored by the 15 Museums Work for Chicago institutions, this program allows individuals with a Chicago Public Library card to check out a pass for free general admission to the Art Institute. Please note the following parameters for use of the Kids Museum Passport:

Each pass admits a maximum of four people for general admission—at least one child under the age of 18 and a maximum of two adults. Ticketed exhibitions and activities are not included and must be purchased separately.

University Partners

Students of colleges and universities in the University Partner Program are entitled to free general and special exhibition admission by showing a valid student ID at the ticket counter. Check the full list of partnering colleges and universities.

Corporate Partners

Employees of certain companies in the Corporate Partner Program are entitled to free general and special exhibition admission by showing proof of employment at the ticket counter. Learn more about the Corporate Partner Program.

Check the full list of Corporate Partner companies whose employees are entitled to free admission.

Each summer The Newberry library holds an amazing used book sale. As with many other events, this was cancelled due to COVID. The Newberry announced today that on December 1, 2021 they once again will be collecting book donations for the sale. Hopefully the sale will be held in 2022!

Here is some information from The Newberry website, see complete details here:

The Newberry Book Fair, Chicago’s favorite used book binge, is held annually on the last weekend of July. Shoppers are invited to browse through more than 135,000 books in 70 categories, many of which are priced at $3 or under. Scour the sale for amazing deals on cookbooks, fiction, art books, children’s literature, history books, and much more. Admission is free and all proceeds support the Newberry.

Donating to the Book Fair

Starting December 1, 2021, the Newberry will begin accepting donations to our Book Fair.

How Can I Donate?

Items can be dropped off from 9 am - 4 pm, Monday - Saturday at the Newberry’s rear entrance off of Oak Street. Please ring the bell at the door for entry and place donations in the box just inside the door. If you are dropping off more than six boxes, we ask that you contact us in advance at (312) 255-3581 or contributions@newberry.org.

What Can I Donate?

We accept books in all genres, with the following exceptions:

• Reference Books such as encyclopedias and dictionaries
• Textbooks
• Magazines, newspapers, posters, calendars, and bookmarks
• Playbills
• VHS cartridges, Tape Cassettes, 8-track cartridges, Laser Discs, 45rpm or 78rpm records, reel-to-reel tapes
• Household items, electronics and non-book items
• Items that have torn and missing pages or water damage

From their website . . . 

A Virtual STEM Career Series For Middle and High School Students

Who we are

A group of graduate students at Northwestern University and The University of Chicago who want to share our excitement for STEM with our community.

What we do

Release 5-10 minute videos made by STEM professionals every other week, followed by virtual, live Q&A panels.

Mission

Introduce STEM careers to middle and high school students, inspiring students from all backgrounds to appreciate and possibly pursue STEM careers in the future.

Here's an excerpt from their email detailing this week's videos:

For the fourth week of our series, we will be hearing from Karen, a psychology researcher, and Julia, a nanotechnologist! Karen walks us through a night in the life of being a dream researcher and shares her favorite parts of the job. Julia explains how she got started in this field, tours her laboratories, talks about challenges in her research topics, and introduces viewers to her favorite inventions.

From the Math Circles of Chicago web site. For additional details and registration information, click here.

Math Circles of Chicago sponsors QED, Chicago’s only Youth Math Symposium. QED is an opportunity for children to take the next step beyond math circles and do inquiry into novel mathematics of their own creation.

QED 2021 will be held online the morning of December 4th. Pre-Registration for QED 2021 is open. The pre-registration deadline is November 15th.

What is a Math Symposium?

A Math Symposium is similar to Science Fair, except that the projects focus on math instead of science. The math projects can be extensions of classroom problems or competition problems that a student has found interesting.

QED is the name of our Math Symposium. QED is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “quod erat demonstrandum,” which is commonly used to signal the completion of a mathematical proof.

From Argonne National Laboratory October 13, 2021 email newsletter . . .

We are happy to announce that Argonne Education has joined STEAMville to provide FREE STEM programming for students! STEAMville is an online platform to help youth explore, discover, develop and showcase their STEAM interests and identities. 

Our first opportunity launching on October 18th is Virtual Competitions!

3rd–5th grade- Future STEM Problem Solvers:

• This hands-on competition explores both science and engineering

6th-8th grade and 9th-12th grade- Spark Your Inner Scientist:

• These two hands-on competitions focus on scientific experiments to test friction

6th-8th grade and 9th-12th grade- Ignite Your Inner Engineer:

• These two hands-on competitions focus on engineering design, building and testing

Top 3 in each competition will receive trophies.  All competitors will get badges on STEAMville for completion and have an opportunity for a live virtual behind the scenes tour of  Argonne National Laboratory where they will chat with scientists and engineers! 

Individual students will have until November 19th to submit their work. 

Interested? In order to participate in the FREE competitions and other programming coming from Argonne, students will need to create a FREE STEAMville account. 

Please direct any questions to Competitions@anl.gov 

Every September, Sky Day brings together artists and scientists to contemplate, discuss and act on the climate crisis. Sky Day is a global experience, as the sky is the one thing we share around the world.

Submit your family's sky photos to the Illinois Kids Climate Summit Gallery! Learn how here:  Kids Climate Summit: Sky Day!

Find other fun Sky Day activities for all ages here: 
skydayproject.com/activities

SkyDay on the radio!

Listen in as Desa Bolger, astronaut Nicole Sott and artist Ben Whitehouse talk Sky Day on WBEZ Reset program. It's a good listen. Please pass it on!

From Argonne National Laboratory. See their website for complete details.

The Argonne Education Teen Advisory Council (ATAC) is an opportunity for young people to strengthen the impact of Argonne’s educational programs by providing feedback on current and future activities. While the ATAC is not a hands-on STEM program, as a member, you’ll have access to STEM professionals and resources that align with your interests in a variety of fields. You’ll also have the opportunity to virtually learn what it’s like to work at a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory.

Membership on the ATAC is a commitment that requires you to contribute your time, energy, and ideas for the council. We will meet virtually every other Thursday from 4-5pm. This council will run from mid-October through May 2022.

Membership is by application. In addition to this application, we require 1 recommendation from a teacher or other adult (such as employer or educator from an out-of-school activity). A committee of Argonne Education staff will select candidates to interview. Application deadline is October 1, 2021. All applicants will be notified of decisions by October 15, 2021.

Calling all kids with a concern for our climate - we need a logo for the 2022 Kids Climate Summit scheduled for Spring 2022! This year's theme is Make Some Noise! 

More Details

Submission deadline: September 27, 2021

IMSA (Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy) STEM Leagues are mostly asynchronous courses designed around a hot topic in STEM, and may include a book read, documentaries/TED Talks, case studies, and other source or research material, with a culminating chat with an author or expert in the field.

IMSA STEM League received the 2020 Innovative Student Program of the year award from the National Consortium Secondary STEM Schools (NCSSS).

STEM League: Genetics (9/13-12/3)

Grades 8-11

This 12- week, mostly asynchronous course is intended for motivated, independent learners who are interested in taking a closer look at the recent developments in the field of genetics, with a special emphasis on gene therapy and gene editing. The ethical considerations of these powerful tools will also be considered. A variety of media sources such as readings, videos, and online tools will be explored, evaluated, and discussed. Over the course of this program, we will read The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It, a narrative nonfiction book by Dr. Ricki Lewis, a geneticist, science writer, and educator. The course will culminate in a live, online, interactive session with Dr. Lewis. The time commitment is roughly 3-5 hours per week.

STEM League: Ethics of STEM (9/13-11/5)

Grades 7-10

In this 8-week online course, participants will be challenged to try and answer a few of the top quandaries of 21st century STEM: 1) Should humans try to geoengineer (a.k.a. climate engineer) the Earth?, 2) Is it okay to use animals in scientific research?, and 3) Are the potential benefits of conducting gain-of-function research worth the inherent risks that it comes with? Students will study curated resources (readings, videos, and thought-provoking lectures) to help inform them about the science underlying the topic at hand, so they are able to make an informed opinion on the issue. While most of the coursework can be accomplished asynchronously (i.e. according to the student’s own schedule) there will also be opportunities for weekly discussions/debates with fellow classmates and the instructor from IMSA’s Center for Teaching and Learning. The time commitment is roughly 1.5–3 hours per week and the (optional) synchronous meetings will take place every week on Tuesday from 4:30-5:30 pm, with open/drop-in office hours on Thursdays from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

Both programs can be found at https://www.imsa.edu/centers/stem-enrichment-programs/online-learning/

From the Adler Planetarium web site . . .

’Scopes at the Adler combines everything you love about our neighborhood telescope program and brings it home to the Adler’s Doane Observatory, where the largest publicly accessible telescope in the Chicagoland area is waiting for you to look through its eyepiece. Join a small group of stargazers and the Adler’s public observing team to see the sky over Chicago like you’ve never seen it before. You’ll also learn how telescopes work and how to find bright stars and constellations using modern and historic tools—and you can try out a working replica of astronomer Galileo Galilei’s handmade telescope.

’Scopes at the Adler events are clear sky events only meaning tickets will go on sale the morning of the event when we are guaranteed good weather! CAPACITY IS EXTREMELY LIMITED (only 12 slots per evening), so you’ll want to follow us on Twitter @AdlerPlanet or join our Facebook Group to be the first to know when tickets drop.

This program is recommended for ages 8 and up. Tickets are $25. Ticket sales for this program are online only, and all ticket sales are final (no refunds). No on-site tickets will be sold. 12 tickets maximum sold per event.