Joyful Science Moments
Our Joyful science moment of the month is captured in this ‘silly smile’ photo of a 2nd grade class celebrating with their Scientist Ambassador who visited their class multiple times this Fall, leading explorations of music and sound.
Our joyful moment of the month features STEM role models from Airmyne wow-ing dozens of 4th and 5th grade Berkeley students with a new science experiment about carbon removal! Students learned how to generate, trap, and remove carbon dioxide, and brainstormed about what innovative ways they would use to remove carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere!
Meet the UC Berkeley scientists and engineers coming to East Bay elementary classrooms!
Students studying neuroscience, electrical engineering, chemistry, and more, joined us on a sunny September afternoon at the Fall Kickoff to learn what CRS has in store for science and engineering outreach in East Bay classrooms. Students ranging from undergraduates to postdocs were eager to find new ways to connect with their peers and give back to their communities. We can’t wait to send both new and familiar teams to meet students this Fall!
Thanks to the teachers from Berkeley, Oakland, and West Contra Costa school districts who participated in our first ever Show Off Your Science Space Photo Challenge who shared images of how they set up their classrooms to welcome their new students and set the tone for a year of joyful learning.
More than 50 teachers attend our two week-long Climate Justice Institutes. Elementary, middle and high school teachers from Berkeley Oakland, West Contra Costa, Hayward and San Leandro school districts delved into data, designed lessons using mapping tools, and planned outdoor learning experiences for their students
Gathered on a summer morning in a verdant, colorful garden abuzz with pollinators, the 20 teachers in our newest cohort of peer coaches eagerly shared with one another stories of what joyful science learning looks like in their elementary classrooms.
Our Joyful Moment of the Month took place at Grant Elementary in Richmond as our CRS team brought a "STEM Day at the Beach" activities for 500 kids! Kindergarteners delighted in stretching out colorful nylon ropes across the schoolyard to discover how big marine mammals from otters to giant blue whales are, while 3rd graders built "driftwood" structures from paper dowels and engineered foil boats to transport toy bears.
Scientist and Engineer Mentors from Amyris and Bio-Rad read science stories and explored the engineering of storm drains with more than 400 students across West Contra Costa and Oakland this May! Students put their engineering hats on, shared ideas, and designed tools to pluck, hook, and lasso materials out the storm drain, including the coveted rubber ducky.
Congratulations to the 2024 Champions of Discovery! More than 30 teachers -- and their nearly 3,000 elementary students -- in West Contra Costa, Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro documented their science learning journey through the 2023-24 school year.
2023 was a year filled with facilitating Eureka moments for children, teachers and scientists alike. We are happy to share a glimpse into some of these Eureka! moments, and to demonstrate how we carefully raise and steward the funds entrusted to us to carry out our mission of fostering joyful science learning experiences, in our newly released 2023 Annual Report.
We were inspired by the student climate activists featured during the Martin Luther King Day Climate Action event put on by Youth Action for the Planet in partnership with Cal Academy of Sciences. The CRS team shared resources and connected with awesome student climate activists from organizations and schools throughout the Bay Area!
CRS programming would not be possible without the support of our UC Berkeley Bay Area Scientists Inspiring Students, aka BASIS teams! In 2023, Cal BASIS Teams shared their passions for science and engineering with more than 10,000 elementary and middle school students, across fields including chemistry, physics, biology, paleontology, engineering and more!
In the Be a Scientist program in 7th grade classrooms, students have been designing their own experiments, following their curiosity and applying the scientific process to gain a deeper understanding of something they are interested in.
This Fall, teachers are exploring the natural world with their students as part of the CRS Champions of Discovery Challenge. Students are engaging with science phenomena by wandering in their school gardens, learning in outdoor classrooms, and observing and sketching plants and insects up close!
Our September Moment of Science Joy featured employees from the Port of Oakland and volunteers from the San Leandro Education Foundation and the Rotary Club of San Leandro communities leading a day-long Science & Engineering Festival for an entire elementary school in San Leandro.
Our joyful science moments of the summer came as the CRS team watched more than one dozen newly-minted educator peer coaches gather together with small groups of same-grade elementary teachers in the glorious Blake Gardens during our two Joyful Math and Science summer workshop series.
What is your climate story?
That’s the question CRS and OTACA asked teachers from Berkeley, Oakland, West Contra Costa, Hayward, San Leandro, San Francisco and even Los Angeles–last week at our 2023 Climate Institute, held at Chabot Space and Science Center.
This school year, CRS partners, donors, and STEM professionals brought the wonder of science to teachers and students across 150 East Bay schools!
On an early spring morning, scientist role models walked into the Oakland elementary school’s multipurpose room, with wide smiles and coffee in hand, ready to lead 150 young learners in explorations.
Thank you to our Champions of Discovery, and all of our teachers, for creating learning environments where both science, and scientists can flourish. This is what fostering belonging looks like in today’s classrooms!
Celebrating and recognizing the 55 inspiring teacher role models from across 34 schools for their excellence in the 2022-2023 Champions of Discovery Challenge
Celebrating the scientists, educators, and graduate students that made the CRS events, collaborations, and programs in 2022 possible in our 2022 Annual Report, and the impact they had on science teaching and learning throughout the East Bay.
Celebrating scientist teams at The Clorox Company and Pliant Therapeutics for two mornings of science-filled fun, teaching Oakland students all about microorganisms and fermentation, and making connections between hands-on science, art, and nature.
Celebrating teacher-developed lessons piloted exploring the properties of light and sparking science joy for first graders in Richmond classrooms!
With in-person visits back in swing, students, like this Oakland 4th grade class, are enjoying getting the opportunity to be curious, ask questions, and make discoveries about the everyday world through science!
Celebrating the delightful, creative examples of how teachers and their students are discovering science phenomena in their daily lives as they complete the first challenge of our 2022-23 Champions of Discovery Challenge.