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Author Archives: Liz Boatman
Science at Cal Day
The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the kids were shooting 2L bottle rockets 30 feet into the air! Cal Day 2011 was an absolute hit with local families and college-seeking high school students. If you weren’t there, then you missed out.
Each year, the departments and museums of UC Berkeley open their doors to share all sorts of Cal-tastic projects, research, and activities with thousands of visitors. With the beautiful sunny weather, this year’s crowd nearly exhausted the hundreds of Cal students who volunteered their time… exhausted with fun, that is!
Outside McLaughlin Hall, a dedicated team of undergraduate students (CalSol) showed off their recently completed, street-legal solar car. With a price tag of $200k for the final product, this project brought together engineering undergrads from throughout the college, providing them with practical, hands-on experience in design. Meanwhile, in Hearst Mining Circle another group of undergrad engineers spent the afternoon grilling up hot dogs for hungry passersby. On Memorial Glade, kids posed for pictures with a larger-than-life Oski. And Sproul Plaza was packed.
E4K and Cal Day are for everyone!
In early March, over 1,000 faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students came together for a week-long celebration of everything engi-nerdy. In a festival of duct-taped professor competitions, trivia nights, and moon bouncer obstacle courses, Cal’s College of Engineering took part in a nation-wide celebration known as National Engineers Week. The capstone event, held on Saturday, March 12, was the annual Engineering For Kids (E4K) outreach science and engineering extravaganza. Hundreds of local families came to campus that chilly morning to introduce their 4th – 6th grade children to all kinds of engineering fun.
Graduate Women of Engineering (GWE) organized an elephant toothpaste activity and a foil boat competition.
BEAM: Cal engineering students take it to the classroom
Berkeley Engineers and Mentors (BEAM) is an after-school science program run by UC Berkeley undergraduates for local K-12 students. Students who teach for BEAM can develop their own lesson plans and enroll for course credit (through DeCal), and they have lasting impacts on children in our local schools.
Founded two years ago by Cal students who wanted to contribute to the community while strengthening their own leadership and teaching skills, BEAM has grown to 11 participating local elementary and high schools. A BEAM alum has even started a satellite branch of the program at UCLA. This past semester, BEAM had 60 mentors who taught a total of 160 kids, over 65% of whom are from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. In total, this group of Cal undergrads logged over 2,000 hours of in-classroom mentoring in just four months.
Now, let’s put BEAM’s 2000 hours of teaching in context. A recent study by the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) reported some all-too-real facts about the state of science education in our local public schools. They found that 80% of local K-5 teachers spend less than 60 minutes per week teaching science–and 16% spend no time at all. BEAM, and other local science outreach programs like Community Resources for Science (CRS), step in where the state and local governments have not.
It is beyond ironic…
Posted in Education, Outreach, UC Berkeley
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“Duck, duck, goose!” Tilden Park is a hotspot for fun in winter
Tilden Park is one of our under-appreciated East Bay treasures. While it may not be prime barbeque weather, there is still plenty of fun to be had at Tilden. And quite a bit of it is family-friendly fun for all ages! To start with, they have a miniature ridge-top steam train. Nowhere else in the Bay Area lets you take an afternoon and ride a tiny train that goes, well, effectively nowhere. Steam trains, of course, are what our country was built on. BART, Caltrain, and Amtrak are all electric, but steam trains are where the real history is. The train runs on weekends and holidays.
If you prefer something more natural and picturesque, the Botanic Garden is the place for you. Home to a variety of endangered plants, the garden also boasts the largest collection of native California plants in the world. Some deciduous trees are still dropping leaves, and the cacti are greener than ever.
Elephant seals: It’s baby-making time
Last January, I visited Año Nuevo State Park for a ranger-guided nature walk of the elephant seal rookery. Thousands of elephant seals were sprawled along the beaches of the park. The largest males frantically attempted to guard their massive harems, while outcast males, who had lost the earlier territory battles, repeatedly tried to sneak in from the water’s edges.
Just as the ranger explained that male elephant seals can grow to the size of a Suburban, he guided our group across a path that looked like it had been carved by the dragging of a very large, heavy sack. Just 20 feet away lay a basking, multi-ton male.
Take a ride on the wild side at the LHS
Through January 2, 2011, the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) is hosting Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters. The exhibit incorporates hands-on designing of mini-coasters, as well as human-sized demos that explore the physiology of coaster-induced thrill, including a hydraulically-powered cart and a spinning, tummy butterfly-inducing room. Six Flags, you have competition (and the LHS has the better view).
Goodbye to the Bevatron
The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) and staff say their final goodbyes to a special facility this month: the Bevatron. Opened in 1954, the Bevatron (otherwise known as Building 51) was an operational proton accelerator until 1993. In those 39 years, research at the Bevatron produced several Nobel Prizes, including the 1959 Prize to Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain for the discovery of the antiproton.
At the time of construction, the Bevatron was the leading particle accelerator in the world! It cost a whopping $9 million to build (don’t ask about the demolition cost).
Monterey Bay Aquarium will tickle you pink
Yet another thing I love about October: it’s breast cancer awareness month, so it is also the national month of pink. One pink thing we can all celebrate is the Hot Pink Flamingos exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is just one of several new works at the Aquarium; others include a sea turtle tank, an informational wing about how global warming affects ocean life, and a small flock of sea birds rescued from an oil spill. These energetic little birds are really enjoying their temporary stay in the kelp forest exhibit, which features hand feedings by divers twice daily.
Flamingos is centered around the idea that even our seemingly small daily choices impact our lives substantially in the long run. Take the example of food: for birds, their diet creates the vivid colors of their feathers, and for us, how we grow our food has substantial impacts on energy consumption and environmental health, among other things.
Blast-off to Chabot Space & Science Center
In 1883, a public telescope was erected in Oakland as part of an observatory open to the curious public. Today this same telescope still stands, but ten years ago it was relocated to the Oakland Hills where the Chabot Space and Science Center was built.
Chabot has dedicated itself to serving the scientific and educational needs of the local community for over a century. The hands-on science museum boasts over 160,000 visitors and an operating budget of over $9 million annually. The center’s dedicated and creative staff, as well as the enthusiasm of our local science-hungry public, make Chabot a success in its mission to inform children about space and science.
Cal Science & Engineering Festival – Save the date!
UPDATE: The festival has been postponed because of the rain forecast. Since there is no indoor location big enough to hold all the excitement we have about science here at Cal, we will have to wait for a dry day to reschedule. I’ll update again when they choose a new date.
-Anna
October has been a great month for a long time now. The Germans brought us Oktoberfest. The Celts brought us Hallowe’en (sort of). Across the US the leaves change, the apples are picked, the rains begin, and the days grow short.
And now we have one more great reason to love October: the first ever USA Science & Engineering Festival will run from October 10 through 24 and includes festivals, concerts, and celebrations of science across the country. Of course, nobody does science and engineering like we do here at Cal!