Skip to main content

RAFT helps spread excitement about science at 2013 Bay Area Science Festival at AT&T Park


November 2, 2013 was a day of great excitement!  This year’s Bay Area Science Festival at AT&T Park in San Francisco, sponsored by Chevron, was full of interesting exhibits displaying unique approaches to learning about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). There were lots of robot-based activities for kids to introduce themselves to basic design and programming and other cool make & take experiences.  Throughout the day the sky was filled with sunshine, a few clouds, and an 8-foot wide floating soccer ball powered and steered using remotely controlled fan jets!

Novel gadgets and battle bots set aside, the highlight for RAFT was being able to distribute 14,000 activity kits to eager children ready to learn science.  We distributed RAFT’s infamous Hovercrafts, Simple Stethoscopes, Critter Capsules, and Fizzy Rockets.  By far the largest crowd was in the Chevron tent, where thousands of people made the Hovercrafts and Critter Capsules at RAFT’s center tables!

Special thanks goes to Chevron, who made it possible to distribute our activity kits free of charge and who provided hundreds of volunteer staff to assist in making the event successful.  We are looking forward to promoting STEM learning at next year’s event.  See you there!

Eric Welker, RAFT Master Teacher and Activity Developer
Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 14, 2013 at 8:17 PM

    I participated in this event as a RAFT Fellow. I have to say that this was one of the best events I have ever been a part of. It was so fun to share the excitement of science. Everyone, young and not-so-young, really enjoyed the Critter Capsules. It was really inspiring to see the spark of understanding as the science behind the Critter was explored/explained.I could have stayed all day, but I had another commitment that afternoon. I found myself wishing I could stay and as I left, I felt I was really missing out. I am already looking forward to participating again next year and I will make sure my family and students put it on their calendars too.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science fairs: Nurturing the 21st century thinker

3D Tessellation model A bespectacled 6th grader enthusiastically explains ‘efficiency of 3D space tessellations’ with myriad equations and handmade tessellation patterns to address the needs of the packaging, storing, shipping and construction industry. Another middle school student, was inspired by his little brother’s telescope and built a simple vacuum chamber using a PVC pipe with a microphone and a speaker on both ends to find out how sound travels on Mars! This 8th grader from Granada Islamic School used an oscilloscope his mother found at an auction to measure the sounds. “I poke around and find junk to build my projects. It’s fun.” Science projects today have become fun for many students as they use more hands on activities to experiment and understand concepts. These two middle school students were among 996 participants at the recent Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship , where RAFT was one of the special judges. Moenes Iskarous, President, S...
18 comments
Read more

RAFT’s Summer of Fun Includes Camps for Teachers & Kids!

Want to stoke the creative innovator in you and your students?   Ever wonder what it takes to design an engaging project or design challenge? Interested in generating your own project based learning experiences but don’t know where to start?   What does it mean to empower students? Ever think of letting students use power tools?    Then rush to sign up now for this year’s exciting new summer workshops at RAFT! Our summer RAFT “EduCAMP” (for teachers)   http://www.raftbayarea.org/workshops   are ten separate 4 hour workshops taught by RAFT’s master educators, each focusing on creative ways to engage teachers and students to become innovative thinkers and makers! All dates and course titles below are at the San Jose location except July 7 th and 14 th :  ·          July 5 th :     Engagement through Design Thinking ·          July 7 th : ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How does math relate to real life?

By Jeanne Lazzarini, Math Master Educator/R&D Specialist, RAFT How does math relate to real life?   One way is to take a look at the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree!   You might be surprised to find that many patterns in nature, called fractals, including growth patterns, have very peculiar mathematical properties ---   even though these natural shapes are not perfect spheres, circles, cones, triangles, or even straight lines!  3D Fractals For Inspiration   So, what is a fractal?   Benoit Mandelbrot (November 20, 1924 – October 14, 2010) is commonly called the father of fractals. He created the term “fractal” to describe curves, surfaces and objects that have some very peculiar properties. A fractal is a geometric shape which is both self-similar and has fractional dimension.    Daydreaming fractals Ok, so what does that mean?   Well, “self-similar” means that when you magnify an object, each of...
Post a Comment
Read more