Chemistry programs for high school students typically focus on laboratory techniques, experimental design, and chemical data analysis. Instead of working only with textbook concepts, you may analyze environmental samples, perform organic synthesis, or work with spectroscopy tools, depending on the program.
Such programs often introduce you to lab safety protocols and instrumentation, analytical chemistry and chemical modeling, data visualization and scientific documentation, and collaborative research and experimental planning. Some programs also include exposure to materials science, environmental chemistry, or chemical engineering, depending on the institution hosting the experience. These hands-on components help you build technical skills commonly used in university-level chemistry labs.
Why should you choose a program in Delaware?
If you’re looking for chemistry programs for high school students in Delaware, you’ll find opportunities connected to research universities, government labs, and industry partners. Delaware is home to institutions such as the University of Delaware and Delaware State University, as well as a strong chemical and pharmaceutical industry presence in the Wilmington region.
Choosing chemistry programs for high school students in Delaware can offer access to university laboratories, exposure to materials science and polymer research, proximity to pharmaceutical and chemical companies, and smaller cohort sizes compared to national programs. Because Delaware is geographically compact, many programs also allow you to participate in research without relocating, making them more accessible during the academic year or summer.
Below is a curated list of 15 chemistry programs for high school students in Delaware. If you’re exploring more opportunities, you can also check out our guides to research programs for high school students in Delaware here and summer programs for high school students in Delaware here.
15 Chemistry Programs for High School Students in Delaware
1. University of Delaware — Forensic Science Pre-College Summer Program
Location: University of Delaware, Newark, DE (commuter; field trips to Wilmington and Bear, DE)
Cost: $1,995 | Partial need-based scholarships available ($495 award) | Early-bird 10% discount if registered by April 1
Dates: June 22–26
Application Deadline: June 8
Eligibility: Rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors | Must have completed at least one high school biology or general science course | Long pants and closed-toe shoes required for safety | Students will be exposed to crime scene photographs and mature forensic content
This one-week noncredit program is led by UD faculty from the Department of Medical and Molecular Sciences, along with active forensic professionals from the Delaware State Police and the Delaware Division of Forensic Science. The curriculum covers crime scene investigation and evidence collection, forensic photography, fingerprinting and impression evidence, blood typing, and DNA analysis, all using the same lab equipment available to UD undergraduates. Day 4 is a field trip to the Division of Forensic Science in Wilmington and the Troop 2 Evidence Unit in Bear. On Day 5, you deliver a court-ready forensic report to a panel of forensic scientists, including Jessica Smith, Chief Forensic Toxicologist of Delaware’s DFS, who oversees 2,100+ cases and 9,500 tests per year.
2. University of Delaware — EDGE Summer College Program
Location: University of Delaware, Newark, DE (residential; on-campus housing and meals included)
Cost: $5,495 (includes housing, daily meal plan, and all group activities) | Need-based scholarships available (contact [email protected])
Dates: July 19–August 8
Application Deadline: May 1 (domestic priority) | February 15 (international priority)
Eligibility: Rising juniors and seniors only | Strong academic potential required (minimum GPA of 3.0) | One teacher/counselor recommendation required
EDGE lets you take 1–2 college-level UD courses for up to 6 transferable credits while living on campus for three weeks. Chemistry-relevant courses have been offered through the College of Arts and Sciences, including introductory chemistry and biochemistry taught by UD faculty. You also complete a required college readiness seminar covering the admissions process, personal essay writing, goal-setting, and time management. Outside coursework, you have access to UD’s research facilities, labs, and campus life, which is the closest simulation of actual college chemistry coursework available to a Delaware high school student before they enrol.
3. University of Delaware — Dual Enrollment Chemistry (ACCESS Program)
Location: Your high school (on-site), UD Newark campus (interactive online streaming), or fully virtual, depending on your school’s partnership with UD
Cost: UD per-credit tuition rate for continuing education students (varies) | Contact [email protected] or call 302-831-8843 for current rates
Dates: Fall semester, spring semester, and summer sessions; meet with an ACCESS advisor at least one week before the term begins
Application Deadline: Rolling | Schedule an appointment with an ACCESS Center advisor before the term starts
Eligibility: Academically qualified Delaware high school juniors and seniors | Available through participating Delaware high schools | Students can also self-enrol as continuing education non-degree students through UD PCS
Through UD’s ACCESS (Academic Credit for Continuing Education Students and Schools) program, Delaware high school juniors and seniors can take college-level chemistry courses, including General Chemistry I, General Chemistry II, Organic Chemistry I, and Organic Chemistry prep, and earn transferable UD credits before graduation. Courses are taught by UD faculty and follow the same curriculum as on-campus sections. This is especially useful if you want to place out of general chemistry as a college freshman, satisfy prerequisites for biochemistry or pre-med coursework, or simply test your readiness for college-level science with real academic stakes.
4. University of Delaware — ECO Camp (Environment, Climate & Ocean)
Location: UD’s Newark campus (Environmental Science week) and UD’s Lewes campus (Marine Science week), Delaware
Cost: Contact [email protected] or call 302-831-2841 for current pricing
Dates: July 6–10 (Environmental Technology Week) | July 27–31 (Marine Science Week)
Application Deadline: Rolling registration
Eligibility: Students entering grades 7–12
ECO Camp is run by UD’s College of Earth, Ocean & Environment and focuses directly on the biogeochemical processes at work in the Delaware Bay, meaning the chemistry of natural systems is core content. The Environmental Science week (Newark campus) covers environmental monitoring, freshwater ecosystem evaluation, climate change impact assessment, and resource mapping, including drone operation for aerial sampling. The Marine Science week (Lewes campus) covers coastal biodiversity, water chemistry, and oceanographic instrumentation, including underwater robotics, microscopes, and field sampling. Both weeks include formal classroom instruction, lab sessions, and field excursions. This is one of the few programs in Delaware that collect and analyze real environmental chemistry data from an active research ecosystem.
5. ACS Project SEED — Delaware Section Placements
Location: University and industry chemistry labs across Delaware (placements vary by year; past Delaware hosts include UD chemistry labs and pharmaceutical industry partners in the Wilmington area)
Cost/Stipend: Paid summer internship (stipend varies; typically up to ~$3,000–$5,000 depending on session)
Dates: 8–10 weeks during summer (June–August); exact dates vary by lab placement
Application Deadline: April 2
Eligibility: High school sophomores, juniors, and seniors from economically disadvantaged backgrounds | Must be under 18 years of age | Must have completed at least one course of high school chemistry | Check further details here
Project SEED (Summer Experiences for the Economically Disadvantaged) is an American Chemical Society program that places students full-time in real chemistry research labs for 8–10 weeks. Delaware’s placement labs have included the US Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and pharmaceutical/chemical companies in the Wilmington corridor, one of the most concentrated pharmaceutical regions in the country, home to AstraZeneca, DuPont, and W.L. Gore. You work on a defined project alongside a faculty or industry mentor, covering techniques like organic synthesis, chromatography, spectroscopic analysis, or drug formulation, depending on your lab. You write a final research report and may present at the ACS National Meeting. SEED alumni receive ongoing college application and scholarship support through the ACS Scholars Program.
6. University of Delaware — CHARM FORGES Program
Location: University of Delaware, Newark, DE (commuter; based at Harker ISE Lab with industry field trips)
Cost/Stipend: Free (NSF-funded through UD CHARM/MRSEC) | $500 stipend provided upon completion
Dates: June 22–26
Application Deadline: March 1
Eligibility: Current high school freshmen, sophomores, and juniors | Have a curiosity for STEM careers and educational pathways | Must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or permanent resident
FORGES (Foundations for Outreach and Recruitment of Great Engineers & Scientists) is a one-week NSF-funded program run by UD’s Center for Hybrid, Active, and Responsive Materials (CHARM). Each day you rotate through a different academic department, chemical and biomolecular engineering, materials science and engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry and biochemistry, and gene editing technology, doing hands-on workshops, lab tours, and experiments guided by UD faculty and PhD students. Field trips have previously included visits to the Chemours Discovery Hub and ChristianaCare’s Gene Editing Institute.
7. University of Delaware — CHARM HighRise Program
Location: University of Delaware, Newark, DE (CHARM labs; commuter)
Cost/Stipend: Free (NSF-funded through UD CHARM/MRSEC) | Stipend provided
Dates: July 6–17
Application Deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: Current high school sophomores and juniors | Must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or permanent resident
HighRise is a two-week immersive materials science program where you rotate through CHARM’s soft materials and hard materials labs, working directly alongside UD faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Lab rotations cover polymers (synthesis, processing, and characterization), semiconductors (band structure, thin-film deposition), and nanomaterials (synthesis at the nanoscale and surface chemistry). You attend learning seminars between rotations that explain the underlying chemistry and physics of each material class. Materials science is not part of a standard high school chemistry or physics curriculum, so this is one of the few places in Delaware where you encounter it before college. The program explicitly builds mentorship connections to support college and career planning in STEM.
8. University of Delaware — Center for Composite Materials (CCM) High School Research Internship
Location: UD Composites Manufacturing Science Laboratory, Newark, DE (on-campus; year-round availability)
Cost/Stipend: Varies | Contact [email protected] for stipend/compensation details
Dates: Year-round | Duration and schedule arranged directly with CCM
Application Deadline: Rolling | Submit resume to [email protected] | No formal application cycle
Eligibility: Open to all levels, including high school students | Students are placed on multidisciplinary teams based on interest and availability
CCM is one of the longest-running composites research centers in the world, founded at UD in 1974 and currently holding over $17M in annual research expenditures from funders including DARPA, NASA, NSF, and the Army Research Laboratory. As a high school intern, you join an active research team working on projects spanning materials synthesis, manufacturing process design, structural characterization, additive manufacturing, and computational modeling of material behavior. You use equipment, including scanning electron microscopes, rheometers, and autoclave manufacturing systems. The summer cycle culminates in CCM’s annual Research Symposium in August, where approximately 25–30 students present their research.
9. Delaware Governor’s School for Excellence — Academic Program
Location: University of Delaware, Newark, DE (residential; students live in UD residence halls for the week)
Cost/Stipend: Free (state-funded; tuition, housing, and meals included; contingent on State of Delaware funding each year)
Dates: July 12–17
Application Deadline: Nomination by school counselor/principal
Eligibility: Delaware 10th graders (rising juniors) only | Both academic and visual/performing arts tracks available
Delaware’s Governor’s School for Excellence is a one-week residential program that brings together roughly 130 of Delaware’s highest-achieving 10th graders on the UD campus. The academic program rotates through UD’s colleges each day, including dedicated days on environmental science, chemistry and materials, social sciences, and government and law, taught by UD faculty in small seminar and lab formats with no grades or exams. The program is competitive; each Delaware high school has a limited number of nominations based on class size, and not all nominees are selected. Since it is contingent on state funding each year, students should confirm the program is running before planning around it.
10. NIST — Summer High School Internship Program (SHIP)
Location: NIST campus, Gaithersburg, MD (in-person; commuter or self-arranged housing; Wilmington, DE is ~45 miles away — within the 50-mile eligibility radius)
Cost/Stipend: Free (unpaid; students provide their own housing and transportation)
Dates: June 22–August 7 (8 weeks, 40 hrs/week, Monday–Friday 8:30 AM–5 PM; poster session August 5)
Application Deadline: January 26
Eligibility: U.S. citizens who are current high school juniors or seniors | Minimum GPA of 3.0 | Must live within 50 miles of NIST Boulder or NIST Gaithersburg | Two letters of recommendation required (one from a STEM teacher)
SHIP places you directly in one of NIST’s six research laboratories: Materials Measurement, Physical Measurement, Communications Technology, Engineering, Information Technology, or the Center for Neutron Research, working under a scientist mentor on a real ongoing project. Chemistry-relevant tracks include biochemistry, nanoscale science, materials science, and polymer science in the Materials Measurement Laboratory. You work full-time for eight weeks, write a research abstract at the midpoint, and present a poster at NIST’s all-program poster session on August 5. NIST research focuses on precision measurement and advanced materials, so the chemistry work here is applied, and instrumentation-heavy past projects have involved spectroscopic analysis, surface chemistry, and materials characterization using equipment unavailable at any high school.
11. NIH — High School Summer Internship Program (HS-SIP)
Location: NIH campuses, Bethesda, MD (main campus; ~60 miles from Wilmington, DE); must live within 40 miles of campus or be 18+
Cost/Stipend: Free (unpaid; students provide own transportation)
Dates: Typically late May–early August (6–10 weeks)
Application Deadline: Application opens mid-November and closes mid-to-late February (noon ET) | Reference letters due approximately one week after deadline | Apply via NIH Application Center at training.nih.gov
Eligibility: Must be enrolled at least half-time as a high school senior and have graduated before the program starts | Must be 18 by program start date and live within 40 miles of an NIH campus | Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident | Strong science background recommended | Coding experience (Python) is an advantage for computational chemistry labs
HS-SIP places graduating seniors in real NIH Intramural Research Program labs alongside Principal Investigators working on federally funded biomedical research. Chemistry-relevant labs include those working on drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (NIDDK), protein chemistry and structural biochemistry (NHLBI), and chemical biology (NCI). You commit 40 hours/week for 6–8 weeks, contribute to an active research project, attend NIH-wide seminars and career workshops, and present your work at NIH Summer Poster Day. There is no centralized selection. Principal Investigators review applications and choose interns, so contacting labs directly after submitting your application significantly improves your chances.
12. Garcia Center for Polymers — Summer Research Scholar Program (Stony Brook University)
Location: Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY (residential option available; ~2.5 hours from Wilmington, DE)
Cost/Stipend: $4,000 lab usage fee + $50 non-refundable registration fee | Optional room and board ~$2,507–$2,700
Dates: June 24–August 7
Application Deadline: March 4
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors | Must be at least 16 years old by July 4 | Must have a minimum unweighted GPA of 95/100 or 3.8/4.0 | Standardized test scores at or above 60th percentile | Three letters of recommendation including one from your science teacher | Must have at least 3 of the following subjects (Honors or AP/IB a plus but not required): English, Chemistry, Mathematics or Calculus, Physics, or Biology (optional)
Garcia is a 7-week NSF-funded polymer and materials science research program where you design and carry out an independent research project from scratch under faculty mentorship. The first three days cover lab safety (with a mandatory test before you enter any lab). From Day 4 onward, you work on your own project daily. Past topics have included nanotechnology, photovoltaic cells, polymer recycling, biomedical materials, and 3D-printing composites, using techniques such as spin-coating, ellipsometry, infrared spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and X-ray scattering at Brookhaven National Laboratory. You present your results at a student research symposium on the final day in front of faculty, parents, and science teachers. Work of sufficient quality gets published in peer-reviewed journals.
13. University of Pennsylvania — Chemistry Research Academy
Location: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (residential; ~30 miles from Wilmington, DE)
Cost: Tuition-based (varies by session) | Financial aid available
Dates: July 11–August 1
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: Current 10th-11th grade students | International students can apply
Penn’s Chemistry Research Academy dedicates approximately 50% of class time to lab work, making it one of the most hands-on pre-college chemistry programs in the Philadelphia/Delaware region. You cover spectroscopy (UV-Vis, NMR principles), gas chromatography, and experimental method optimization in the lab. Lecture topics include nanoscale materials chemistry, chemical protein modification for disease research, and the chemistry of rare earth metals. You tour the Singh Center for Nanomaterials, the Science History Institute (located in Philadelphia’s chemical heritage district), and active Penn research facilities. The program culminates in a capstone chemistry project.
14. Summer Science Program (SSP) — Biochemistry Track
Location: Multiple campuses across North America (check summerscience.org for current sites); fully residential
Cost: Tuition-based with need-based financial aid (approximately $7,750 before aid)
Dates: Programs begin mid-late June | Exact dates vary by location
Application Deadline: January 29 (international) | February 19 (domestic)
Eligibility: Current high school juniors who have completed or are in the process of completing any level of high school biology and chemistry by June for credit and a grade | Must be at least 15 years old but not yet 19 during program operation | Strong algebra skills are highly recommended
SSP Biochemistry is one of three SSP research tracks (alongside Astrophysics and Genomics). You work in a team of three to complete a real research project over five weeks. Past participants have worked with the 3D structure of an unknown protein using X-ray crystallography, a technique used in pharmaceutical drug design. Daily activities include fast-paced faculty lectures on organic chemistry, biochemistry, and structural biology; hands-on wet-lab sessions using protein purification columns, crystallography equipment, and computational modeling software; and collaborative data analysis sessions. SSP estimates 60–80 hours of work per week. Results are submitted to the Protein Data Bank, an international scientific repository, meaning your work becomes part of the permanent scientific record.
15. ACS ChemClub — Virtual Chemistry Programming & Competitions (National)
Location: Fully virtual/online
Cost: Free
Dates: Year-round | Major annual events include National Chemistry Week (late October), Chemists Celebrate Earth Week (April), and the ongoing ChemClub competition circuit
Application Deadline: Clubs register annually (May 1–November 1)
Eligibility: Any middle or high school student in the U.S. | Must join through a school-sponsored club with a teacher advisor
ACS ChemClub gives you access to a structured national network of chemistry activities, competitions, and resources outside of class. Through ChemClub, students can enter the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO), the pipeline to the International Chemistry Olympiad, which starts with a local section exam each spring and advances top scorers to a national study camp. ChemClub also connects you to the Illustrated Poem Competition, Chemistry Ambassador program, and free access to C&EN (Chemical and Engineering News), the ACS’s flagship scientific journal. For students in Delaware without access to a university research lab, ChemClub is a structured way to deepen chemistry knowledge, build a competition record, and connect with the broader chemistry community.
One more option – Horizon Academic Research Program
If you’re looking for a chemistry research program for high school students to explore advanced chemistry topics, conduct independent research, and develop a research paper, consider applying to Horizon’s Research Seminars and Labs! This is a selective virtual research program that lets you engage in advanced research and develop a research paper on a subject of your choosing. Horizon has worked with 1000+ high school students so far and offers 600+ research specializations for you to choose from. You can find the application link here!
Image Source – University of Delaware