Visit the Bay Area Science Fest to Experience Hands-On STEM Fun
The Bay Area Science Festival is back for its 13th year with expanded tours and hands-on science activities. Hosted by UCSF’s Science and Health Education Partnership (SEP), the festival is a community celebration of STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math — as well as art and music.
The Oct. 17 event will be held at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus and bring together 15,000 community members, scientists, and educators to share in more than 125 hands-on experiences, demonstrations, lab tours, and talks. If you’re a young person interested in STEM or you know an adult who is, this free event will showcase exciting career possibilities.
Katherine Nielsen, SEP’s director, talks about this year’s festival, community connections with scientists, STEM opportunities for young people, and how enthusiasm for science can be infectious.
Who is the festival for?
There’s something for everyone. Many activities are designed for all ages, and everyone can enjoy activities like using sunlight to roast a marshmallow, building paper airplanes and rockets, dissecting owl pellets, experiencing immersive whale sounds, and helping a robot shoot a basketball at the Robot Zoo. With middle and high school students in mind, we also have three-minute lightning science talks, career panels, short science films, a live podcast taping, and lab tours.
Why host the festival at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus?
After years at Oracle Park, we moved the festival to UCSF Mission Bay last year. Welcoming the Bay Area community to campus for this free event gives people a chance to experience UCSF in a new way, sometimes for the first time. Thanks to our SEP volunteers — graduate students, postdocs, professional students, researchers, staff, and faculty — attendees can see firsthand how UCSF is a place where health, science, care, and research happen.
And because we’re right here on site with science, we can offer lab tours and stage events in a new way.
What’s new this year at the Bay Area Science Festival?
This year we’ve doubled the number of lab tours around Mission Bay. Visitors have several exciting new opportunities, including exploring the physics behind archery with the USA National Archery Team and learning how to assemble a prosthetic leg with UCSF technicians. And we’re thrilled to feature an outdoor stage geared toward all ages, from pre-K and elementary school kids up to adults. The stage will host a science magic show, live interactions with animals through Tree Frog Treks, a STEM story time, and more.
SEP volunteers are passionate about what they do. Young people get to see that enthusiasm and understand that science and health are things they can be part of.
Katherine Nielsen, director, UCSF Science and Health Education Partnership
Why is it important for young people to meet scientists and health professionals?
Our goal is to create connections and spark an interest in science, possibly sparking their interest in a STEM career or just helping them see science and health in a new way. If you don’t know someone working in a STEM career, it can be hard to envision a future in science. Connecting with people who are actually doing the work can help open minds to what’s possible.
SEP volunteers are passionate about what they do. Young people get to see that enthusiasm and understand that science and health are things they can be part of.
What else does SEP do?
SEP connects the university with young people across San Francisco through science education, mentorship, and hands-on learning. For almost 40 years, we have worked in close partnership with San Francisco’s public schools to give young people, their teachers, and their families opportunities to engage with science and health and the people who practice it.
In early elementary school, a UCSF volunteer might read a science storybook and talk about why they study science and what they love about it. In longer partnerships in K-12 classrooms, volunteers and teachers work together to develop and teach lessons over multiple visits. These connections with UCSF volunteers help students envision themselves doing science.
Then there are programs that bring students to UCSF, including our High School Intern Program, where students spend eight weeks working nearly full time in UCSF research labs. That program has been going for decades and has had a real impact on students going to college, studying STEM, and entering STEM fields. Several have returned to UCSF for studies or careers!